UK towns with the most film & TV businesses revealed
January 30, 2019
According to Gov.uk more than £20 million is being injected into the UK’s increasing number of creative industries, in order to attract new talent, scale up businesses, boost skills and provide further education.
The creative industries are currently a motor of growth within local economies spanning across the UK, not just in London and the South East of England. With increasing productivity and growing workforces, creative industries have the potential to play a role in closing the UK’s productivity gap.
Moreover, British creative industries have made another record contribution to the economy in 2018 with £101 billion (Creative Industries Policy and Research Centre). This comes as no surprise considering film, TV, radio, music and performing arts, photography, IT and advertising are all a part of this dominating sector.
British business and consumer marketplace, OnBuy.com sought to identify which areas across the UK have an above average specialism within the creative industries with the highest employment rate and businesses.
The data was obtained using the Nesta ‘Creative Nations’ interactive tool, selecting each creative industry (seven in total) and using the tool to collate data and statistics on the towns and cities with an above average local specialisation in each selected industry.
The industries included in the tool are as follows: Advertising and Marketing, Architecture, Design (product, graphic and fashion design), Film, TV, Video, Radio and Photography, IT Software and Computer Services, Music, Performing and Visual Arts and finally Publishing.
Where can you find the most film, TV, radio & photography specialists in the UK?
OnBuy.com discovered that the following six towns and cities had the highest employment*, with an above average number of employees specialising in film, TV, radio & photography:
London (107,965 employees), Slough & Heathrow (15,155), Manchester (12,830), High Wycombe & Aylesbury (1,835), Ipswich (1,170) and finally Penzance with 975.
Furthermore, OnBuy assessed the areas with the highest employment rate, and its overall added value to the local specialism. This revealed that although London has the highest employment number, Penzance has the highest gross value added (GVA) in reference to the number of employees employed in the area with a speciality in film, TV, radio and photography. Indicating that the value of this sector in Penzance has increased by 9.73 per cent. Thereafter the order was as follows: London (2.85 per cent), Slough & Heathrow (2.71 per cent), Manchester (1.88 per cent), High Wycombe & Aylesbury (1.50 per cent) and finally Ipswich (1.31 per cent).
The top towns and cities with the highest opportunities in film, TV, radio & photography with the most businesses with an above average specialisation, include:
London (15,015), Slough & Heathrow (1,983), Manchester (1,090), High Wycombe & Aylesbury (503), Brighton (475) and Ipswich with 110.