The Economic Contribution of the Core UK Music Industry – UK Music/Jonathan Todd (2013)

Author(s): Jonathan Todd/UK Music
Publisher: UK Music
Date: 2013

UK Music has released an in-depth report into the music industry’s contribution to the economy.  UK Music has assessed the economic contribution of the music industry in terms of GVA, exports and employment.

£3.5bn the economic contribution of the core UK music industry

This is made up of: £1.6bn from musicians, composers and songwriters; £634m from recorded music; £662m from live music; £402m from music publishing; £151m from music representatives; £80m from music producers, recording studios; £1.4bn the value of exports; 101,680 full time jobs.

• GVA is the contribution by the industry to GDP
• Exports are the component of this contribution generated by revenues from outside the UK
• Employment is the number of jobs sustained by this contribution

This is the most exhaustive study to date on the economic contribution of the core UK music industry.

Existing estimates of the contribution of the music industry to the British economy are flawed. Government is reliant on ONS for the data they publish about the creative industries.  This is bound by international standards which represent music poorly.  As ONS data depends on these standards, data on the music industry is weak. Government cannot tease out the separate contribution of music and has to put music data together with other creative sectors.

Government therefore cannot report on the music industry as a stand-alone industry because of the weakness in the data.  The national accounts fail the music sector:

• The music industry is not categorised as a specific industry.  Music companies are widely dispersed across many SIC codes in the national accounts making it impossible to accurately analyse the sector.
• Even within the most relevant SIC codes that exist in the national accounts, music cannot be disaggregated from a much wider group which includes all of the performing arts (dance, theatre, opera, circus, comedy, variety) and visual arts (galleries, etc).
• Difficulties in accurately capturing and reporting on the music industry’s large proportion of micro-companies, sole traders and freelancers mean that their contribution to GVA cannot be attributed to the music industry in official estimates.

Click here to read or download the full report

Click here to read or download the summary report

Click here to read the report’s entry on the UK Music website.