Frazer vows to grow creative industries by £50bn

Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer has pledged to create an additional million jobs within the creative industries and grow the sector’s economic value by £50bn within the next seven years.

Frazer set out her vision for the creative industries through the rest of the decade as part of a keynote speech at the Deloitte and Enders Media and Telecoms 2023 & Beyond Conference yesterday (18 May), and focused on maximising growth and creating more career opportunities for the sector.

“I have no doubt that we in government can do more to support our creatives, but we cannot simply rely on the formula for that past success,” Frazer said.

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“By turbocharging growth and investment in sectors like video games, visual effects, music, fashion, film and television and more, we can retain our status as a creative industries superpower for decades to come.”

The Culture Secretary said she wants to work with the sector to deliver a Creative Careers promise that “builds a pipeline of talent into our creative industries”.

She said over the next few months, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) will be promoting creative skills to all ages, from primary school children to those returning to the workforce, “whether that is in music at school or extracurricular activities and working with the creative sector on maximising the opportunities of bootcamps and apprenticeships”.

The department will also look at targeting specific support at different sub sectors and harnessing talent in clusters across the UK, with Frazer adding that support “cannot be at the expense of London or detract from those places that are already thriving”.

The Culture Secretary said she “knows” the sector can meet her targets “because we are fortunate to have a PM and Chancellor who have identified this sector as one of five priority sectors for government”.

Elsewhere in her speech, Frazer focused largely on the screen industries and stated the UK is on track to double its film stage space by 2025.

Frazer’s pledges for the creative industries come ahead of DCMS’ long-awaited Creative Industries Sector Vision, which is expected to focus on inclusive growth, and is due to be published in the coming months.