Creative industries see record year

By Brookson

The UK's creative industries have been applauded for seeing a record year in terms of performance.

According to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, these industries saw continued growth throughout 2014. This in turn has been supported by a number of government initiatives and tax reliefs.

The latter is great news for limited companies, sole traders and umbrella company contractors as the creative industries have been considered a stronghold for these workers.

Areas that have proved to be particularly strong are music, film and video games. For example, the UK's video game industry is currently leading the European market. It is the largest games development community on the continent, with 1,902 video games companies based in the UK. Nesta's report, A Map of the UK Games Industry, published in September 2014, said the UK video games industry has the potential to bring £1.72 billion to the economy.

Commenting on the results, minister for the creative industries Ed Vaizey said: "2014 has been a fantastic year for UK music, film and video games. It’s great to see continued growth across all our creative industries with more investment going into training and production. Together the sector contributes £70bn to the UK and so a vital part of our economy. I look forward to 2015 with the expectation of even greater things to come."

Among the British film companies that have shown to be doing well are Pinewood Studios. This is good news for small businesses local to Pinewood as it has been known to use nearby firms as part of its supply chain. It talked about this at the Confederation of British Industry Annual Conference, where it encouraged other businesses to take advantage of the fact that other firms tend to cluster nearby.

To build on the success of the music industry, the government has been helping independent music companies market their products overseas with the Music Export Growth scheme. Through this, these firms can get grants of up to £50,000.

Supporting growth of the video games industry in the UK, the Government introduced the Gaming Tax Relief, which will open more opportunities for training and employment. According to a news report from Deloitte and TIGA titled Making Games in the UK Today: June 2014, this tax relief could be worth £25 million per year for the industry.

On top of this, the Creative Industries Council also launched CreatUK, which is the first industry-led strategy that aims to ensure growth and see more jobs secured both in the UK and internationally. It is also intended to help with exporting UK creativity abroad and to encourage further investment.

Speaking about CreateUK, industry co-chair of the Creative Industries Council and Vice President for EMEA at Facebook Nicola Mendelsohn said: "The sector has found a strategy and working arrangement with Government that means we are well placed to continue to secure the UK’s place as a leading global hub for the creative industries for the decades to come."