Dawn Dunn, Invest Newcastle Digital and Tech Sector Lead at NGI, shares her thoughts on the potential of the creative industries to drive inward investment and economic development.
Music, film, TV, radio, photography, advertising and marketing, fashion and design, publishing, arts and crafts, museums and galleries, libraries, cultural venues, animation, video games and interactive media. Just some of the areas captured under the umbrella of the ‘creative industries’, and one that could contribute £132bn to the UK economy by 2025, given the right support and investment.
This is a sector with enormous potential to drive inward investment and inclusive growth across North East England. For too long, the economic impact of the creative industries has not been properly articulated, often labelled as a ‘nice to have’ in a narrow policy context where science, technology and engineering are seen as the prime drivers of innovation and development.
To give some context – the life sciences sector, important though it is, employs only a fraction of the people working in creative industries (280,000 vs 2,3m), which presents a significant opportunity.
A Creative UK report published in 2021 found that the creative industries contributed almost £116bn in gross value added (GVA) prior to the pandemic. The same report also found that for every £1 created by the creative industries in the North East, the multiplier effect is £2.50 generated elsewhere in the local economy.
North East England is fortunate to have brilliant creative development organisations, including music agency Generator, North East Screen, which supports every element of screen production and New Writing North, which is bidding to make the region a creative capital through its £14m national writing centre. These groups have already been successful in attracting major industry players to increase their presence in the North East.
Earlier this year, I joined Generator CEO Mick Ross and his team at The Great Escape in Brighton, an event described as ‘THE festival and conference for the music business’. With around 4,000 industry professionals in attendance, I was blown away by the level of strategic coordination and ambition on display from organisations like the Association of Independent Music, the Council of Music Makers and the Nighttime Industries Association.
These groups of people have long understood the convergence between creativity and economic progress and the additional presence of professional service providers and investment houses there was clear visibility that this really is a sector “whose time has come”.
In trade and investment terms, the UK has a unique opportunity to leverage its well-earned global appeal as a creative and cultural superpower to boost economic growth. The Creative Industries Council’s International Strategy, published in December 2022, shows that exports could reach £78bn by 2030, while international audience research commissioned by the British Film Institute (BFI) found that 66% of people who visited the UK did so due to the popularity of UK film and TV.
Film tourism is something that has recently seen massive growth in the North East, with film crews a now familiar sight in Northumberland and Newcastle, as we see a burgeoning number of productions being made here. This not only boosts the local visitor economy, but it also gives confidence to the market that this is a place where value can be created and related supply chains can thrive.
Invest Newcastle has been thrilled to support companies like Omnicom Media Group UK, True North Post, Chatterbox, TwentySix 03 and Run VT to establish a base in the region in recent months. These businesses recognise our potential for growth, and with plans for the £450m Crown Works Studios set to transform not just the regional creative ecosystem but the wider economy, it really feels like the next chapter of the North East story could be its most exciting yet.
The creative industries sector is also important for the region because it is another example of how we can flip the script on decades of economic consolidation in London and the South East.
The RSA’s Northern England Creative Industries background paper, published in 2023, found that as a share of the local economy, the creative industries in the North currently contributes less than 3% to GVA. In London and the South-East, that number is closer to 10%, meaning there is significant untapped potential for growth.
If, for example, the North was able to increase the contribution of the creative industries to GVA to 5%, around half the levels in London, this would be equivalent to a boost of around £10 billion by 2030.
The RSA’s report also cites the disparity between North and South in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) from the creative industries, which as a sector accounts for around 10% of total FDI into the UK. Between 2013 and 2019, the North East, North West and Yorkshire took just a 10% share of these FDI projects, highlighting how uneven the distribution of investment into the creative sector has been.
The RSA proposes developing a network of creative hubs as part of a Northern Creative Corridor, bringing together the right people from the regions to create a stronger investment proposition.
At a local level, it has been encouraging to hear the creative industries being mentioned in the strategic conversation about economic development following the formation of the new Mayoral Combined Authority and the establishment of Creative Central NCL by Newcastle City Council.
As we embark on a new era, now is the time to put in place the building blocks for a future where creativity and innovation are one and the same thing.
