Economic Estimates: Earnings 2023 and Employment October 2022 to September 2023 for the DCMS Sectors and Digital Sector
Source: gov.uk (2025-04-09)

Official Statistics used to provide an estimate of the contribution of DCMS Sectors and Digital Sector to the UK economy, measured by employment and employee earnings.

Revision note:

April 2025 DCMS and digital sector October 2020 to September 2023 employment data tables including the full set of additional breakdowns for all years have been re-published.

November 2024 We have made some small revisions to both the DCMS and digital October 2021 to September 2023 employment tables, due to the identification of an error. For DCMS sectors, October 2022 to September 2023 data tables have been re-published and for October 2021 to September 2022, headline data at sector-level has been re-published.

For Digital sectors, the October 2022 to September 2023 table has been re-published for Digital and Telecoms sectors and total filled jobs for digital subsectors. For October 2021 to September 2022, headline data has been published for the Digital and Telecoms sectors. The full set of additional breakdowns for these tables will be re-published in due course.

26 March 2024: The Economic Estimates: Digital Sector Earnings Annual Gross Pay 2023 table has been corrected and re-published following the identification of an error. No other Digital or DCMS Earnings or Employment tables are affected by this change.

About

These Economic Estimates are used to provide an estimate of the contribution of DCMS sectors, and separately the digital sector, to the UK economy, measured by employment (number of filled jobs) and employee median earnings. These estimates are calculated based on the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Annual Population Survey (APS) and Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) respectively.

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 yet available. The release also includes estimates for the audio visual sector and computer games sector.

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:

Between October 2022 to September 2023, there were 4.0 million total filled jobs in the included DCMS sectors, an increase of 393,000 (10.9%) since pre-pandemic (2019) and 55,000 (1.4%) since the previous equivalent 12-month period.

Since pre-pandemic (2019), driving the growth in included DCMS sector employment was the creative industries (16.3% increase). Over this period, employment also grew in the civil society sector (8.0% increase), cultural sector (1.3% increase), and gambling sector (4.8% increase), however, remained below 2019 (pre-pandemic) levels in the sports sector (2.5% decrease).

As of April 2023, median annual earnings for employees in the included DCMS sectors were £30,164; 1.7% greater than the UK overall (£29,669). Median annual earnings for included DCMS sectors have grown in line with the UK overall compared to the previous year, both growing by 6.9%. However, compared to pre-pandemic, median annual earnings have grown faster in included DCMS sectors, an increase of 22.8%, than for the UK overall, which grew 19.0%.

Employees in the creative industries (£39,366) and cultural sector (£31,014) had higher median annual earnings than the UK overall but employees in the civil society (£27,409), sport (£21,000) and gambling sectors (£26,164) had lower median annual earnings.

As of April 2023, for every £1.00 earned by a man employed in the included DCMS sectors, a woman earns £0.80. Meaning a gender pay gap of 19.8%, larger than the UK overall (14.2%). This is a 0.2 percentage point decrease from last year (20.0%), and a 3.1 percentage point decrease from pre-pandemic (22.9%).

Digital sector:

These statistics also cover the contributions of the following digital sectors to the UK economy

digital sector

Of which: telecoms

Users should note that the telecoms sector sits wholly within the digital sector.

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:

Between October 2022 and September 2023, there were approximately 1.9 million filled jobs in the digital sector, an increase of 352,000 (22.6%) since the 2019 calendar year (pre-pandemic) and 49,000 (2.6%) since the previous equivalent 12-month period.

As of April 2023, median annual earnings for employees in the digital sector were £42,061; 41.8% greater than the UK overall (£29,669). Median annual earnings for the digital sector have grown slightly more than the UK overall compared to the previous year, with 7.2% and 6.9% increases respectively. However, compared to pre-pandemic, median annual earnings have grown by 12.4%, significantly less than the UK overall, which grew 19.0%.

As of April 2023, for every £1.00 earned by a man employed in the digital sector, a woman earned £0.84. This was a larger pay gap than the UK overall (16.1% vs 14.2%), though the gap has reduced since last year and since pre-pandemic.

Released

First published on 21 March 2024.

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.

Office for Statistics Regulation

These official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) in June 2019. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics (https://code.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/) and should be labelled accredited official statistics. Accredited official statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.

Our statistical practice is regulated by the OSR. OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics 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 (mailto: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).