Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she is taking steps to help establish partnerships with (a) private sector and (b) academic institutions to increase skills training in the creative industries.

The Creative Industries Sector Vision sets out the Government’s ambition to maximise the potential of the creative industries. It details our plans to grow these industries by an extra £50bn and create a million extra jobs by 2030, and build a pipeline of talent and opportunity for young people through a Creative Careers Promise.

The Creative Industries Sector Vision sets out a range of interventions across education, skills and job quality to achieve this, working in partnership with the creative sector and those involved in education and training. The forthcoming joint Department for Education and Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Cultural Education Plan will support the provision of high quality cultural education for all school-age children, including careers advice and skills development. This will provide young people with a window into the sector, and access to important foundational skills.

Strengthening talent pipelines for young people is also a priority. This will be delivered through our Creative Careers Programme,, two new creative T-Levels rolling out in September 2024, and multiple national and regional opportunities to participate in apprenticeships and digital and creative Skills Bootcamps. Many of these initiatives are delivered in partnership with the private sector and academic institutions such as Netflix, the BBC and University of Birmingham.

These interventions complement the investment the sector is already making on skills. For example, the BFI’s £9 million National Lottery funded ‘Skills Clusters’ which will support skills development and training across the UK; ScreenSkills’ £19 million Future Film Skills Programme which has helped over 119,000 people progress in screen careers since 2018; and the work of the world-leading National Film and Television School, which received funding from DCMS.