Official Statistics

DCMS Sector Economic Estimates: Employment, January 2024 to December 2024

Published 14 August 2025

1. Background:

• Release date: 14 August 2025
• Next release: Summer 2025
• Geographic coverage: United Kingdom and ITL1 regions
• Time coverage: 2011 to 2024
• Responsible analyst: Nicholas Hamilton Wu

This publication provides an update on the DCMS workforce based on the latest 2024 data provided by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Annual Population Survey (APS). For this purpose, estimates will cover employment (number of filled jobs) in the included DCMS sectors for the 2024 calendar year (January to December).

Due to ongoing challenges with response rates, response levels and weighting, the accreditation of ONS statistics based on Annual Population Survey (APS) was temporarily suspended on 9 October 2024. On 4 August 2025, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) temporarily suspended the accreditation from this employment series, at our request, following ONS reporting concerns with the quality of estimates for smaller segments of the APS population, which the DCMS Sector Economic Estimates: Employment series depends on. For further information on the data quality challenges, see the associated technical report.

In addition to classifying these estimates as official statistics in development until further review, in the data tables we have included data on:

• coefficients of variation to indicate the level of statistical robustness for each employment estimate for 2024. 
• confidence intervals to indicate the amount of uncertainty around each employment estimate for 2024. 
• confidence intervals for total number of filled jobs in DCMS sectors (excluding tourism) for 2011 to 2024 to enable users to compare whether changes over time are statistically significant. 

We advise users to use this accompanying data when interpreting DCMS sector employment estimates, particularly for more granular breakdowns such as subsector estimates and demographic breakdowns.

The APS enables us to estimate multiple demographic breakdowns of employment for the DCMS sectors. The demographics reported here focus on breakdowns by sex (male and female), disability (reported as people with a disability and people without a disability, as defined under the 2010 Equality Act) and ethnicity. The published tables contain more information, including breakdowns by region, age, nationality, highest level of education and working pattern (full-time or part-time).

2. Sectors

The estimates reported here cover employment in sectors for which DCMS is responsible:

• Civil society
• Creative industries
• Cultural sector
• Gambling
• Sport
• Tourism (data available up to 2023)

For details of each sector’s definition, see the associated technical report.

Please note data for the Tourism sector is available up to 2023 only because 2024 estimates from the ONS’s Tourism Satellite Account are yet to be published. We have made some revisions to employment estimates for the tourism sector and DCMS sectors overall for the years 2016 to 2019, following revisions made by the ONS to the underlying Tourism Satellite Account data.

The data tables also include estimates for the audio visual sector, computer games subsector, and arts and antiques market, which we have published alongside this report.

All figures for the number of filled jobs are rounded to the nearest thousand (with exception of those less than 1,000).

3. DCMS sectors (excluding Tourism):

As of the 2024 calendar year, there were a total of 4.0 million filled jobs in the included DCMS sectors, representing 11.7% of total filled jobs. This is an increase of 401,000 filled jobs compared to 2019 (up 11.1%). For context, in the UK economy as a whole, filled jobs have increased by 1.5% since 2019.

Figure 1: Employment (filled jobs) in the included DCMS sectors with confidence intervals, UK, 2011 to 2024. 

Figure 1 shows that the number of filled jobs in the included DCMS sectors has increased since 2011. In 2024, the number of filled jobs in included DCMS sectors was 37.9% higher than in 2011 and 11.1% higher than in 2019. There are no statistically significant differences in DCMS sector employment estimates between 2021 and 2024. Figure 1 also shows an increase in the size of confidence intervals, particularly since 2019, indicating a decrease in the certainty of employment estimates for DCMS sectors. This is linked to the falling sample size of the underlying APS data source. 

Table 1 shows the number of filled jobs in each included DCMS sector in 2024, and the change since 2023, 2019 and 2011, where these changes are statistically significant. Compared to 2019, there were more filled jobs in the creative industries and civil society sectors in 2024. The creative industries, the largest included DCMS sector, had both the biggest relative and absolute growth (14.7% and 308,000), driving the overall increase for included DCMS sectors. Changes in the number of filled jobs in the cultural sector, sport and gambling between 2019 and 2024 were not statistically significant. 

Compared to 2023, there were no statistically significant changes in the included DCMS sectors overall or individually in 2024.

Table 1: Filled jobs in the DCMS Sectors 2024, with statistically significant changes from 2023, 2019, and 2011.

Key: “ - “ indicates that a change is not statistically significant.  

Statistically Significant Changes

Sector (Due to overlaps, sectors do not sum to DCMS total)	Filled jobs: 2024 (Latest estimate)	Change since 2023 (previous calendar year estimate)	Change since 2019 (pre-pandemic)	Change since 2011 (earliest available data)
All UK Sectors	34,069,000	-	+1.5%	+13.1%
Incl. DCMS Sectors	4,002,000	-	+11.1%	+37.9%
Creative Industries	2,409,000	-	+14.7%	+54.3%
Civil Society	996,000	-	+11.0%	+29.3%
Cultural Sector	700,000	-	-	+28.4%
Sport	557,000	-	-	-
Gambling	75,000	-	-	-

3.1 Regional Breakdowns

1. Overall, filled jobs in the included DCMS sectors are more concentrated in London than in the UK economy as a whole. Within the included DCMS sectors, 24.4% of filled jobs were in London in 2024, a higher proportion compared to the UK economy overall, of which 15.9% were in London. However, this varies by sector - the overlapping cultural sector and creative industries are most concentrated in London, with 36.2% and 30.4% of filled jobs in London respectively. 

These vary by individual DCMS sector:

• Civil society: filled jobs in the civil society sector are spread slightly more evenly than the included DCMS sectors overall, but have a southern bias, with the three largest shares are in the southern regions:-being, London (16.8%), the South East (15.2%), and the South West (11.1%).
• Creative industries: filled jobs in the creative industries are more concentrated in London than the UK economy overall. In 2024, the largest share of creative industries filled jobs were in London (30.4%), followed by the South East (16.4%).
• Cultural sector: filled jobs in the cultural sector are more concentrated in London than the UK economy overall. In 2024, the largest share of creative industries filled jobs were in London (36.2%), followed by the South East (11.8%).
• Gambling: filled jobs in the sports sector are more evenly distributed across regions than DCMS sectors overall. In 2024, the largest share of sports sector filled jobs were in London (21.0%), followed by the West Midlands and the North West (both 14.6%).
• Sport: filled jobs in the sports sector are more evenly distributed across regions than DCMS sectors overall. In 2024, the largest share of sports sector filled jobs were in the South East (18.3%), followed by London (12.9%) and the North West (12.4%).

Figure 2: Employment (filled jobs) in the included DCMS sectors by region, with confidence intervals, for January to December 2024. 

The South East and North West were the only two regions to see a statistically significant growth in filled jobs between 2019 and 2024, increasing by 26.0% and 17.0% respectively.

Table 2. Confidence intervals for employment (filled jobs) in the included DCMS sectors by region, January to December, 2019 and 2024.

Year	Interval Bounds	East (TLH)	East Midlands (TLF)	London (TLI)	North East (TLC)	North West (TLD)	Northern Ireland (TLN)	Scotland (TLM)	South East (TLJ)	South West (TLK)	Wales (TLL)	West Midlands (TLG)	Yorkshire and The Humber (TLE)
2019	Lower Bound	282.389	172.916	868.121	98.549	273.584	55.04	234.678	524.964	297.937	109.734	209.275	214.112
2019	Upper Bound	331.187	210.108	956.533	118.517	312.788	68.63	268.282	586.606	341.169	128.264	245.215	249.966
2024	Lower Bound	291.084	181.986	905.816	98.161	337.979	65.592	267.096	608.715	320.019	124.074	228.825	222.504
2024	Upper Bound	357.122	226.994	1037.91	125.875	400.603	83.364	316.162	692.063	379.481	155.086	282.759	270.562

3.2 Demographic breakdowns

Any demographic comparisons made in this section between the included DCMS sectors and the UK overall are statistically significant at the 95% confidence level. 

As of 2024, within the included DCMS Sectors there were 45.7% of filled jobs held by female workers, lower than 48.1% for the UK workforce overall. In the included DCMS sectors, 19.2% of filled jobs were held by disabled people in 2024, higher than 18.4% UK workforce overall.

These vary by individual DCMS sector: 

• Creative Industries: As of 2024, the Creative Industries had an estimated share of filled jobs held by disabled people at 17.0% and by female workers at 37.4% .
• Civil society: As of 2024, the Civil Society sector had an estimated share of filled jobs by disabled people at 25.4% and by female workers at 67.5%.
• Cultural sector: As of 2024, the Cultural Sector had an estimated share of filled jobs held by disabled people at 20.0% and by female workers at 44.5%.
• Sport: As of 2024, the Sport sector had an estimated share of filled jobs held by disabled people at 17.7% and female workers at 43.5%.
• Gambling: As of 2024, the Gambling sector had an estimated share of filled jobs held by disabled people at 20.9% and by female workers at 41.1%. 

Within the included DCMS sectors, the share of filled jobs held by people from the white ethnic group was 85.1% (vs 84.1% UK workforce overall), 7.2% from the Asian or Asian British ethnic group (vs 8.0% UK workforce overall), 3.5% from the black, African, Caribbean or black British ethnic group (vs 4.4% UK workforce overall),  2.3% from the mixed or multiple ethnic group (vs 1.6% UK workforce overall), and 1.9% from the other ethnic groups (vs 1.9% UK workforce overall).

These vary by individual DCMS sector:

• Civil society: As of 2024, the share of filled jobs held by people from the white ethnic group was 88.2%, 3.4% from the Asian or Asian British ethnic group, 4.9% from the black, African, Caribbean or black British ethnic group, 1.9% from the mixed or multiple ethnic group and 1.6% from other ethnic groups.
• Creative industries: As of 2024, the share of filled jobs held by people from the white ethnic group was 82.7%, 9.9% from the Asian or Asian British ethnic group, 2.8% from the black, African, Caribbean or black British ethnic group, 2.3% from the mixed or multiple ethnic group and 2.3% from other ethnic groups.
• Cultural sector: As of 2024, the share of filled jobs held by people from the white ethnic group was 87.9%, 4.0% from the Asian or Asian British ethnic group, 3.7% from the black, African, Caribbean or black British ethnic group, 2.9% from the mixed or multiple ethnic group and 1.5% from other ethnic groups.
• Gambling: As of 2024, the share of filled jobs held by people from the white ethnic group was 79.4%, 7.3% from the black, African, Caribbean or black British ethnic group, and 5.2% from the Asian and Asian British ethnic group.
• Sport: As of 2024, the share of filled jobs held by people from the white ethnic group was 91.1%, 3.2% from the black, African, Caribbean or black British ethnic group, and 2.8% from the Asian and Asian British ethnic group.

Further demographic information can be found in the published tables, including breakdowns by age, nationality, highest level of education and working pattern (full-time or part-time).

4. DCMS Sector Overlap

In order to measure the size of the economy it is important to define it. DCMS uses a range of definitions based on internal or UK agreed definitions. Definitions are predominantly based on the Standard Industrial Classification 2007 (SIC) codes. This means nationally consistent sources of data can be used and enables international comparisons. There is an overlap between DCMS sectors, and  some industries (as defined by 4-digit Standard Industrial Classification, or SIC, codes) are part of more than one DCMS sector. In particular, the cultural sector is defined using SIC codes that are nearly all within the creative industries. When we produce estimates for DCMS sectors as a whole, we remove these overlaps and count each industry once.

The exact size of the overlap between sectors varies by measure. For the figures in this release, the overlap between the sectors is illustrated in Figure 1. 

Figure 3: Size of the overlap between DCMS sectors, Employment, January 2024 to December 2024.

5. Further Information

Office for Statistics Regulation

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to. You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.

Methodological information on the sector definitions, data sources, derivation of GVA and limitations of the approach can now be found in the accompanying technical report, along with. a summary of alternative economic measures of these sectors that are published elsewhere.

The responsible statistician for this release is Nicholas Hamilton Wu. For enquiries on this release, please email evidence@dcms.gov.uk.

For general enquiries contact:

Department for Culture
Media and Sport
100 Parliament Street
London
SW1A 2BQ

For media enquiries contact: 020 7211 2210.

DCMS statisticians can also be followed on X via @DCMSInsight.