The UK’s most lucrative creative sectors are suffering from a chronic under supply of skills, just as the industry's less profitable but more glamorous ones are being overpopulated.
Shortages of expertise are in the performance and theatre industries, with deficits in crucial backstage jobs such as make-up artists, set designers and wardrobe specialists.
In contrast to these less visible roles, including off-stage marketing and fundraising, there are “too many wannabes”, on-stage performers and aspiring directors.
Such is the finding of research by industry body Creative and Cultural Skills, which warns of a mismatch between supply and demand in the UK’s creative industries.
The research, obtained yesterday by a national paper, reveals that the creative and cultural sectors - including advertising, arts and design, has more students than jobs.
An estimated 700,000 people currently study creative or cultural courses at college or university, compared with total employment in the sector of under 600,000.
Tom Bewick, chief executive of Creative and Cultural Skills, said it was “staggering” that there are 100,000 more students than there are workers in the sectors.
Speaking to the Financial Times, he said the cause was, partly, the “celebrity culture and Saturday night TV shows that endlessly promote creativity as being about on-stage performing.”
This, he added, had created a culture of “too many wannabes and not enough people who ware prepared to get their hands dirty.”
Despite the oversupply of students, if the shortages are not filled, “ultimately the reputation of the UK’s creative and cultural industries will be diminished as a result,” the research warns.
The findings, compiled from surveying a reported 2,000 employers, warn of a “chronic undersupply” of technical skills in theatre and live performance, both regarded as among the UK’s most lucrative exports from the creative industries.
Dec 4, 2007
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