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Creative Industries

The UK combines a world class creative talent base with an established tech sector, an ecosystem of innovators and a big market opportunity.

Film

Pinewood Studios and iconic brands including James Bond and Star Wars are just the start of a huge sector of global importance

Gaming

Home to many of the world’s leading computer game companies who have produced some of the world’s most popular content

The creative economy is particularly highly concentrated in London and the South East, accounting for over 40% of employment in this sector in the UK.

The Thames Valley is key to the UK creative economy, with proven areas of expertise across a range of disciplines, including Film, Gaming and Digital Media.

• 2014 UK Creative Economy Gross Value Added (GVA) £84bn – up 9% on 2013
• 2.9m UK jobs in 2015 – 1m each inside / outside the sector itself, 0.9m support jobs
• 16% of these sector jobs in the South East – largest region outside London
• Sector delivered over £19.8bn of creative services exports in 2014
• 2015-6, 210 films made in the UK claimed Film Tax Relief with UK expenditure of over £1bn
• 50 TV programmes made in the UK claimed High-end Television Tax Relief, with UK expenditure of £300m
• 135 claims for Video Games Tax Relief since April 2014, supporting UK expenditure of £417m

For more UK-wide information on the creative sector, go to https://invest.great.gov.uk/us/industries/creative/ .

Britain’s creative industries are growing twice as fast as the rest of the economy, are worth a staggering £92 billion, and employ 2 million people. The sector is now set to consolidate the country’s position as a global creative powerhouse, following the launch of a groundbreaking new Industrial Strategy deal agreed between the Government and the Creative Industries Council (CIC). Read more about the Creative Industries Sector Deal HERE.

The Creative South East, to which the Thames Valley contributes significantly, presents excellent capability to any potential investor and many opportunities for developers in the creative industries – working alongside centres of excellence, like Pinewood Studios, innovators in digital media and gaming and resources such as the National Film and Television School.”

A major motivator for businesses within the Creative Industries sector choosing to locate within the Thames Valley is the steady flow of trained personnel generated by the first class industry specific academic and training facilities across the sub-region.

These include:

• National Film and TV School – described by the Hollywood Reporter as “the number one international film school”
• Buckinghamshire New University – offering a range of degrees preparing people to work in the outside broadcast production industry
• University of Reading – offering a broad range of Creative Industries courses at all levels, with students expressing 97% satisfaction in recent surveys
• The School of Audio Engineering – world HQ in Oxford, where they offer world class practical creative media facilities
• Oxford Brookes University – renowned Communications, Media and Electronic Technologies (COMET) Research Group
• The Next Gen Skills Academy – a national centre of excellence for the games, visual effects and animation industries

Networking with like minded individuals is a key benefit of locating your business within a cluster of other businesses from the same sector. Digital Oxford offers some great opportunities to achieve this, as does the Oxford Technology & Media Network.