Employment in culture outstrips pre-pandemic levels

Employment in the cultural industries has continued to grow despite the pandemic, official figures suggest

New data from DCMS covering the period October 2020 to September 2021 records an estimated 696,000 people working in culture – 8,000 people more than the same period across 2019 and 2020, and 20,000 more than before the pandemic.

The figures appear to illustrate the success of furlough and the failure of the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme in supporting the sector: what was a 50-50 split in employed and self-employed cultural workers is now 54% in favour of the employed.

There are also about 10,000 more culture professionals in working in London than in 2019/20.

Despite the advent of Brexit at the end of 2020, there are still as many EU nationals working in the sector.