The Creative Industries sector [1]:

• contributes 6.4% GVA (excluding crafts and design for whom consistent figures are not available) and has grown by an average of 4% from 1997 to 2006 compared to 3% of the whole of the economy;
• contributes a greater proportion of GDP than any other nation according to a recent OECD study [52];
• accounted for £16 billion of exports in 2006 equating to 4.3% of all goods and services;
• employs an estimated 1.98 million people, equating to 6.78% of the working population. Of these, 1.15 million work within creative companies across 157,400 registered businesses (2008) and the remaining 800,000 work in a creative capacity in other non-“creative industry” sectors.

In recent years, creative employment has been growing at 2%, comparing favourably with a 1% average for the whole economy.