Before we begin this week’s blog post, given the title, we should point out that we recognise that not all freelancers work in the creative industries – there’s no need to write in and complain! However, we thought this report from Nesta was too interesting to pass unnoticed.
One of the joys of freelancing has to be that you needn’t be tied down to a particular commuter route. Indeed, being able to work from home, potentially for any company in the world that has a Skype or Google Hangouts account and wants to employ you, is a large part of the attraction.
That said, most of us do live within spitting distance of some reasonably large conurbation or other, if only because it saves us from going stir crazy, rattling around in our own living rooms and talking to ourselves (and only ourselves) all week long.
So, if you were planning to set yourself up as a creative freelancer tomorrow, where would you begin? A recent report from Nesta and Creative England, entitled The Geography of Creativity in the UK, suggests that it could pretty much be anywhere. Perhaps unsurprisingly for an island left to its own devices, floating off into the north Atlantic, we’re a pleasingly creative bunch.
London is the most creative city, followed by… Slough?!
There are no prizes for guessing which city tops the UK’s creativity charts. If you’re a creative freelancer, the likelihood is that you’ve already considered, if not moved to London, already. With 81,704 creative businesses offering 484,752 jobs, you can see why people might think the capital’s streets are paved with gold.
However, which of you would’ve guessed that the Slough and Heathrow areas might come in second? Granted, it’s not a close second, but the home of Wernham Hogg and David Brent is no slouch in the creative sector. 14,100 creative businesses provide 74,765 creative jobs, making up 9% of total local jobs available.
Naturally, many of the top 10 are – like Slough – close enough to the capital to suggest that the proximity is a big part of their success. However, that doesn’t stop certain stats raising eyebrows. The city of Reading comes in fourth, blocked from the top three only by Manchester, and can boast that 15.4% of its local businesses are in the creative industries. What’s more 11% of Reading’s total local jobs fall into the same category. It seems the city famous for imprisoning Oscar Wilde has made amends.
One place notable for its absence is Birmingham, a city with a creative boom that we reported on only last month. While Brum is certainly investing heavily in the creative industries, it seems the concentration of creative businesses is not yet significant enough to make the charts (which relied on data up to and including 2014).
The researchers have this to say on the city’s invisibility: “In the case of Birmingham – a focus of much public creative industries investment in recent years – there can also be found several recently arrived ‘anchor’ institutions such as the BBC Academy and Birmingham Ormiston Academy, so we would expect to see growth there in the future.” In other words, watch this space…
The top 10 conurbations for creative freelancers in the UK are…
- London (81,704 creative business, 484, 752 creative jobs)
- Slough and Heathrow (14,100 / 74,765)
- Manchester (8,220 / 62,972)
- Reading (4,842 / 30,337)
- Guildford & Aldershot (5,120 / 30,300)
- Luton (4,565 / 25,664)
- Oxford (3,061 / 26,974)
- Glasgow (3,237 / 28,005)
- Cambridge (3,919 / 30,851)
- Leeds (2,749 / 21,297)
What does this report mean by ‘creative freelancers’?
Now that you know where you’re likely to find the work, it’s worth underlining what being one of these creative freelancers actually means. The creative sub-sectors that Nesta and Creative England are specifically looking at in this report are design, software and digital, advertising, film, radio and TV, architecture, publishing, music and the performing arts.
While each of these sectors are said to be growing, the report particularly highlights “rapid growth” in design, advertising, software and digital. At the opposite end of the spectrum is music & the performing arts, where growth has been seen but not on the same scale.
What does this report mean for ‘creative freelancers’?
In short, it suggests things are looking up. Elsewhere in the report, a 15% decline in the size of creative businesses (from an average of four staff members in 2007 to 3.3 by 2014) may appear grim on first inspection, but it’s worth pointing out that the numbers are for full-time employees.
As these fall but the number of creative businesses continues to grow, the suggestion is that creative freelancers are in demand. Many businesses are increasingly happy to turn to freelancers – experts in their field – for contract work. In short, it’s a good time to be in the creative freelancing game. Just make sure you’ve got a decent online accountant working your corner, and things should look very rosy indeed.