In 2021, they employed 2.3 million people, a 49% increase since 2011. Their impact reaches beyond their borders to other sectors, with advertising, marketing and creative digital innovation supporting sectors across our economy.
Their impact reaches beyond their borders to other sectors, with advertising, marketing and creative digital innovation supporting sectors across our economy.
Oxfordshire is home to 4,969 (July 2022) creative sector businesses representing 12.5% of all businesses (source: Clusters Data, Creative UK). In the 10-year period between 2011 and 2021, Oxfordshire recorded growth of 21% for the creative industries.
Oxfordshire has one NESTA Creative Cluster (areas with higher rates of innovation and economic growth in the creative industries) and was identified as a high-growth cluster in the Creative Industries Sector Deal (2018). Alongside this, Oxfordshire has 11 micro-clusters (Creative Industries Radar Mapping the UK’s creative clusters and micro-clusters (2020); and three rural clusters (Policy Evidence Centre and National Innovation Centre Rural Enterprise: Mapping and examining the determinants of England’s rural creative micro-clusters (May 2022)).
In terms of sub-sectors, the majority (45%) of creative businesses are engaged in computer consultancy and programming activities, with a further 9% in film and TV production. Oxfordshire also has significant strengths and specialisms in publishing, with a very high location quotient of 13.06 for book publishing (Lightcast 2021).
A notable gaming company, Rebellion (pictured below), privately invested £78m in Rebellion Studios, in Didcot creating 500 new jobs, and are redefining the industry bringing together cutting-edge film and TV production and stages, 30 years of games production and two decades at the forefront in performance capture technology.
Rebellion Studios, in Didcot.
The research capabilities of the universities of the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University ensure that Oxfordshire can be at the forefront of developing cutting-edge technologies which encourage innovation and new ways of working across the creative industries.
CIRIN at Oxford Brookes is further developing connections between research and industry. At the University of Oxford, the Humanities division (TORCH) soon to be housed in the Schwarzman Centre lead collaborations such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) retellings of Shakespeare, site-specific Augmented Reality (AR) interventions in heritage spaces and Fantasy Futures: Imagining Immersive Innovation.