Accredited official statistics

Economic Estimates: Employment in the DCMS sectors, January 2023 to December 2023

Updated 20 December 2024

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/economic-estimates-employment-and-aps-earnings-in-dcms-sectors-january-2023-to-december-2023/economic-estimates-employment-in-the-dcms-sectors-january-2023-to-december-2023

1. Details:

This publication provides an update on the DCMS workforce based on the latest 2023 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 2023 calendar year (January to December).

2. Sectors

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

  • Civil society
  • Creative industries
  • Cultural sector
  • Gambling
  • Sport
  • Tourism (not included in this release)

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

Please note data is not available for the Tourism sector because 2023 estimates from the ONS’s Tourism Satellite Account are yet to be published.

3. Employment

DCMS publishes estimates of the number of filled jobs in the DCMS sectors, and for the UK overall. These estimates are calculated using the Annual Population Survey (APS) and aim to provide greater understanding of employment trends and access in DCMS sectors, and of the DCMS contribution to the UK economy.

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).

This publication will compare the latest 2023 calendar year data to the 2019 and 2022 estimates in the tables accompanying the release.

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

4. DCMS sectors (excluding Tourism):

As of the 2023 calendar year, there were a total of 4.0 million filled jobs in the included DCMS sectors, representing 11.8% of total filled jobs. This is an increase of 403,000 filled jobs compared to 2019 (up 11.2%), and 81,000 filled jobs compared to 2022 (up 2.1%). For context, in the UK economy as a whole, filled jobs have increased by 1.4% since 2019 and 0.8% since 2022.

Table 1 shows the number of filled jobs in each included DCMS sector in 2023, and the change since both 2022 and 2019. As some of the sectors overlap, sectors do not sum to the DCMS sectors total. Of the included DCMS sectors, the gambling sector experienced the largest percentage growth in filled jobs compared to 2022 (up 10.6%) and the creative industries experienced the largest percentage growth compared to 2019 (pre-pandemic). 

Table 1: Filled jobs (nearest thousand) in the DCMS sectors and UK overall for the 2023 calendar year, and change compared to the 2022 calendar year and pre-pandemic (2019).

  Latest 2023 calendar year estimate Change from Previous 2022 calendar year estimate Change from Pre-pandemic 2019 calendar year estimate
All UK sectors 34,006,000 +267,000 (+0.8%) +453,000 (+1.4%)
All DCMS sectors (excluding Tourism) 4,004,000 +81,000 (+2.1%) +403,000 (+11.2%)
Creative industries 2,419,000 +23,000 (+0.9%) +318,000 (+15.1%)
Civil society 981,000 +39,000 (+4.2%) +84,000 (+4.9%)
Cultural sector 666,000 -28,000 (-4.1%) -10,000 (-1.5%)
Sports 559,000 +18,000 (+3.3%) -3,000 (-0.6%)
Gambling 84,000 +8,000 (+10.6%) 8,000 (+10.0%)

4.1 Demographic breakdowns

As of the 2023 calendar year, within the included DCMS sectors there were 45.9% (vs 47.9% UK workforce overall) of filled jobs held by women and 17.4% (vs 17.0% UK workforce overall) held by disabled people.

Figure 1: Proportion of filled jobs in the DCMS sectors and UK workforce by sex and disability status, 2023.

These vary by individual DCMS sector: 

  • Creative Industries: As of 2023, the Creative Industries had an estimated share of filled jobs held by disabled people at 14.7% and by women at 37.9% .
  • Civil society: As of 2023, the Civil Society sector had an estimated share of filled jobs by disabled people at 24.3% and by women at 68.9%.
  • Cultural sector: As of 2023, the Cultural Sector had an estimated share of filled jobs held by disabled people at 20.0% and by women at 49.1%.
  • Sport: As of 2023, the Sport sector had an estimated share of filled jobs held by disabled people at 16.6% and women at 44.1%.
  • Gambling: As of 2023, the Gambling sector had an estimated share of filled jobs held by disabled people at 21.9% and by women at 35.9%. [footnote 1]

Within the included DCMS sectors, the share of filled jobs held by people from the white ethnic group was 86.0% ( 85.0% UK workforce overall), 7.1% from the Asian or Asian British ethnic group (vs 7.9% UK workforce overall), 2.5% from the black, African, Caribbean or black British ethnic group (vs 3.5% UK workforce overall), 2.1% from the other ethnic groups (vs 2.0% UK workforce overall), and 2.3% from the mixed or multiple ethnic group (vs 2.0% UK workforce overall).

These vary by individual DCMS sector: [footnote 2]

  • Creative industries: As of 2023, the share of filled jobs held by people from the white ethnic group was 83.6%, 8.7% from the Asian or Asian British ethnic group, 2.7% from the black, African, Caribbean or black British ethnic group, 2.8% from other ethnic groups, and 2.3% from the mixed or multiple ethnic group.
  • Civil society: As of 2023, the share of filled jobs held by people from the white ethnic group was 89.6%, 5.0% from the Asian or Asian British ethnic group, 2.3% from the black, African, Caribbean or black British ethnic group, 0.8% from other ethnic groups, and 2.3% from the mixed or multiple ethnic group.
  • Cultural sector: As of 2023, the share of filled jobs held by people from the white ethnic group was 90.3%, 4.0% from the Asian or Asian British ethnic group, 2.4% from the black, African, Caribbean or black British ethnic group, 1.6% from other ethnic groups, and 1.6% from the mixed or multiple ethnic group.
  • Sport: As of 2023, the share of filled jobs held by people from the white ethnic group was 90.9%, 2.9% from the Asian or Asian British ethnic group, 2.8% from the black, African, Caribbean or black British ethnic group, 1.2% from other ethnic groups, and 2.2% from the mixed or multiple ethnic group.
  • Gambling: As of 2023, the share of filled jobs held by people from the white ethnic group was 75.6%, 18.0% from the Asian or Asian British ethnic group, 0.0% from the black, African, Caribbean or black British ethnic group, 0.0% from other ethnic groups, and 6.4% from the mixed or multiple ethnic group.

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

Annex: DCMS Sectors Overlap

In order to measure the size of the economy it is important to be able 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 2: Size of the overlap between DCMS sectors, Employment, January 2023 to December 2023.

  1. Values for the employment of disabled people in the gambling sector are based on small samples.This increases the uncertainty in the demographic breakdowns for the sector. Table 10a in ‘Economic Estimates: Employment in the DCMS Sectors, January to December, 2011-2023’ tables provides a breakdown of the data quality for the estimates. ↩

  2. Some of the estimates by ethnicity are based on small samples, which increases the uncertainty. Table 10a in ‘Economic Estimates: Employment in the DCMS Sectors, January to December, 2011-2023’ tables provides a breakdown of the data quality for the estimates. ↩

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