Digital technology and creative arts career patterns in the UK creative economy

Abstract

In this article, we ask what role both digital and artistic human capital play in the creative economy by examining employment patterns of digital technology (DT) and creative arts and design (CAD) graduates. Using student micro-data collected by the Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA) in the United Kingdom, we investigate the characteristics and location determinants of these graduates. The article deals specifically with understanding how digital and creative skills in the UK are embedded across industries, or are concentrated in creative sub-sectors. Furthermore, it explores the role that these graduates play in each of the different sectors and their financial rewards. Findings suggest that digital technology graduates tend to concentrate in the software and gaming sub-sector of the creative industries, but also are likely to be in embedded creative jobs outside of the creative industries. DT and CAD graduates are more likely to be in a creative job than other graduates. Although they are more likely to be in full-time employment than part-time or self-employment, DT graduates suffer from a higher level of unemployment than CAD graduates.

Keywords:

• digital technologies
• embedded creative work
• creative industries
• human capital
• creative graduates

Notes

1. STEM subjects are identified with the sciences, technology, engineering and maths.

2. Codes include all computing sciences codes under G, all codes beginning with H6 (except H673 and codes beginning with H68 and H69) and all codes beginning with J52 and J93. See Appendix 1 for more details about the JACS codes used.

3. If we assume that full-time individual’s work a minimum of 30 h for 52 weeks and using the minimum wage as of January 2006, which was £4.25, this equates to £6630 which we rounded down to £6500.

4. Although this is a broader question, which the present article cannot answer, there has been research highlighting the need for universities to link more with the creative industries to respond to the needs of employers see Heartfield (2005).

5. T-values from significance tests of differences between non-creative and creative job salaries by subject group were –8.1994, –0.2061 and 15.427 for DT, CAD and other graduates respectively.

6. ‘The Fund, a partnership between NESTA, the Arts Council England and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), is unique in encouraging collaboration between the arts, digital technology providers and the research community in order to undertake experiments from which the wider arts sector can learn’ (Arts Council England 2012).