Economic Estimates: Employment in DCMS sectors, April 2024 to March 2025
Source: gov.uk (2025-11-11)

Official Statistics in development used to provide an estimate of the contribution of DCMS Sectors to the UK economy, measured by employment.

Revision Note:

November 2025: We have made a correction to the labels in the DCMS Sectors Economic Estimates: Labour Force Survey, July to September, 2016-2024 data table.

About

These economic estimates are used to provide an estimate of the contribution of DCMS sectors to the UK economy, measured by employment (number of filled jobs). These estimates are calculated based on the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Annual Population Survey (APS).

Call for feedback:

We are seeking further views on the pausing of our quarterly publications, please see the notice further below.

Notice on Accreditation:

The statistics in this series (including this release) will be classed as official statistics in development until further review. On 4 August 2025, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) temporarily suspended the accreditation (https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/ed-humpherson-to-sarah-alloway-lasher-suspension-of-official-statistics-accreditation/) from this employment series, at our request (https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/sarah-alloway-lasher-to-ed-humpherson-suspension-of-official-statistics-accreditation/), following ONS reporting concerns (https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/michael-keoghan-to-siobhan-tuohy-smith-request-to-suspend-aps-accreditation/) with the quality of estimates for smaller segments of the APS population, which the DCMS Sector Economic Estimates: Employment series depends on.

Due to ongoing challenges with response rates, response levels and weighting, the accreditation of ONS statistics based on Annual Population Survey (APS) was temporarily suspended (https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/michael-keoghan-to-siobhan-tuohy-smith-request-to-suspend-aps-accreditation/) on 9 October 2024. Because of the increased volatility of both Labour Force Survey (LFS) and APS estimates, the ONS advises that estimates produced using these datasets should be treated with additional caution. ONS statistics based on both the APS and LFS will be considered official statistics in development until further review.

Following the ONS reporting concerns regarding the quality of the APS estimates, particularly for smaller segments of the population, we conducted analysis to understand the quality of DCMS employment estimates. Consequently, we have concerns regarding increased volatility due to low APS sample sizes and its impact on the reliability and quality of our estimates. The statistics in this series will be classified as official statistics in development until further review. Previous releases in the series have been classified as accredited official statistics, meaning that they have been independently assessed by the OSR as complying with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics.

Content

DCMS Sectors

These statistics cover the contributions of the following DCMS sectors to the UK economy;
- civil society
- creative industries
- cultural sector
- gambling
- sport
Tourism is not included as the data is not available for non-calendar year publications. The release also includes estimates for the audio visual sector, computer games sector and the arts and antiques market. The audio visual and art and antiques market sectors do not form part of the DCMS total.

Users should note that there is overlap between DCMS sector definitions. In particular, several cultural sector industries are simultaneously creative industries.

A definition for each sector is available in the tables published alongside this release. Further information on all these sectors is available in the associated technical report along with details of methods and data limitations.

Headline findings

Estimates of the number of filled jobs in the included DCMS sectors in the period April 2024 to March 2025 show that:
- There were 4.0 million total filled jobs in the included DCMS sectors, representing 11.7% of filled jobs.
- Employment in the included DCMS sectors grew by 11.1% compared to pre-pandemic levels (2019), faster than growth for the UK overall at 1.8%.
- There are no statistically significant changes between April 2024 to March 2025 and the previous equivalent 12-month period in the included DCMS sectors overall or individually.
- Within the included DCMS sectors, the region with the highest number of filled jobs was London with 964,000 filled jobs, 24.2% of total of filled jobs in the included DCMS sectors. However, this varies by sector.
Call for Feedback

We are seeking user feedback on a proposal to pause our DCMS Sector Economic Estimates quarterly employment publications and continue to publish only the calendar year annual employment estimates.

Due to quality issues (https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/michael-keoghan-to-siobhan-tuohy-smith-request-to-suspend-aps-accreditation/) with the low sample size of the ONS Annual Population Survey (APS), the underlying data source for DCMS employment estimates, we have seen increased volatility and uncertainty in our employment estimates. This has impacted the reliability and quality of our estimates, making harder to detect changes over time. As a result, we do not think that the rolling 12-month quarterly estimates currently provide much additional information compared to our annual calendar year estimates. We are therefore proposing to pause our quarterly employment releases to focus on other statistical work.

We will continue to publish annual calendar year estimates and the next publication will be the January to December 2025 release, provisionally planned for June 2026.

We will review whether or not to return to publishing rolling quarterly releases as the quality of the underlying ONS data improves, in line with user needs.

We welcome feedback and views on this proposal. If you have any comments, please contact xxx@xxx.xx (mailto:xxx@xxx.xx) by Wednesday 12th November.

Released

First published on 9th October 2025.

Pre-release access

A document is provided that contains a list of ministers and officials who have received privileged early access to this release. In line with best practice, the list has been kept to a minimum and those given access for briefing purposes had a maximum of 24 hours.

Official Statistics in Development

On 4 August 2025, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) temporarily suspended the accreditation (https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/ed-humpherson-to-sarah-alloway-lasher-suspension-of-official-statistics-accreditation/) from this employment series, at our request (https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/sarah-alloway-lasher-to-ed-humpherson-suspension-of-official-statistics-accreditation/), following ONS reporting concerns (https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/michael-keoghan-to-siobhan-tuohy-smith-request-to-suspend-aps-accreditation/) with the quality of estimates for smaller segments of the APS population, which the DCMS Sector Economic Estimates: Employment series depends on. The statistics in this series will be classified as official statistics in development (https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/policies/official-statistics-policies/official-statistics-in-development/), in line with ONS’s decision to consider their APS based labour market statistics as official statistics in development, until further review.

Official statistics in development are official statistics that are undergoing development and will be tested with users, in line with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics (https://code.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/the-code/). These statistics are being published as official statistics due to concerns about the quality of estimates for smaller segments of the APS population, which the DCMS Sector Economic Estimates: Employment series depends on.

In addition to classifying these estimates as official statistics in development until further review, in the data tables we have included data on:
- coefficients of variation to indicate the level of statistical robustness for each employment estimate for April 2024 to March 2025, as well as the previous 12 month period.
- confidence intervals at the 95% confidence level to indicate the amount of uncertainty around each employment estimate April 2024 to March 2025, as well as the previous 12 month period.
Office for Statistics Regulation

Our statistical practice is regulated by the OSR. OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics (https://code.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/the-code/) that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards by emailing xxx@xxx.xx. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing xxx@xxx.xx (mailto:xxx@xxx.xx) or via the OSR website (https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/).

The responsible analyst for this release is Nicholas Hamilton Wu.

For further details about the estimates, or to be added to a distribution list for future updates, please email us at xxx@xxx.xx (mailto:xxx@xxx.xx).