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Economic Impact of the Creative Industries in Bath

The Creative Industries are a major and growing force in Bath and North East Somerset.

If you work in the Creative Industries in Bath and North East Somerset, you’re involved in one of the region’s biggest industries. According to a recent report undertaken by GWE Business West Research, Total Creative Industries enterprise turnover in the B&NES region is somewhere in the region of £800 million per annum. And the creative sector is the fifth largest of the 10 sectors, which make up the local economy.

The Creative sector in Bath and North East Somerset accounts for:

•    700 employing businesses with 4,200 employees

•    2,500 further individuals in self-employment

•    A total of 6,700 people reliant upon the Creative Industries for their livelihood

•    3,200 separate ‘enterprises’


Whilst Bristol is undoubtedly the largest Creative Industries economy in the South West, Bath and North East Somerset overtakes Bristol and takes the regional lead in the Creative Industries in terms of its concentrations of Creative Industries businesses in the sector and its concentrations of employment in the sector:

• Creative Industries in Bath and North East Somerset account for 8.3% of all employing units, the highest proportion amongst all Upper Tier Local Authorities in the South West of England and well above the regional average of 5.2% and the national average of 5.8%.

• Creative Industries in Bath and North East Somerset account for 5.4% of all employees, the highest proportion amongst all Upper Tier Local Authorities in the South West of England by a considerable margin. In fact, Bath and North East Somerset proportion of employment in the Creative Industries is more than twice the South West regional proportion (2.5%) and significantly higher than the national average of 3.0%.

If it is viewed as a Sector in its own right, and on both the key measures of business volumes and employee volumes, Bath and North East Somerset Creative Industries Sector is the 5th largest of the 10 broad sectors which comprise the local economy. In fact, there are more businesses located in the Sector in Bath and North East Somerset than in such industries as Other services, Manufacturing, and Transport and communications and more employees than Construction. There are also more businesses and employees in the Creative Industries than in Tourism.

As well as leading the way in overall business concentration and employee terms, Bath and North East Somerset holds the regional lead, on both measures, in a number of key sub-sectors of the Creative Industries:

• Publishing of books

• Publishing of journals

• Publishing of sound recordings

• Other publishing

• Architectural and engineering activities and related technical consultancy

• Artistic and literary creation

Combined, the above findings clearly establish the Bath and North East Somerset workplace economy as the most ‘Creative Economy’ within the South West of England.

 

Posted by:

EmmaChappel

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