To understand how digital innovation can impact the craft industries in the United Kingdom, the project examined the UK crafting sector as documented in the ONS Census 2021. The project mapped the census categories used to represent the broader craft sector.
For context, in the EU, the Creative and Cultural Industries (CCI) encompass a wide variety of sub-sectors including architecture, archives, libraries and museums, artistic crafts, audiovisual (including film, television, video games and multimedia), tangible and intangible cultural heritage, design (including fashion design), festivals, music, literature, performing arts, (including theatre and dance), books and publishing, radio, and visual arts. Within these industries, cultural heritage is seen both as a sub-sector; as well as a means to spark creativity, foster wellbeing, and contribute to prosperity and foments a sense of belonging [1]. Across Europe, the cultural and creative industries (CCIs) ecosystem represents approximately 3.95% of EU value added and employs around 8 million people, including around 1.2 million firms, over 99.9% of which are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
In the UK, the Creative Industries were defined in the Government’s 2001 creative industries Mapping [2] and are addressed in the 2025 UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy Sector Plan for the Creative Industries[3]. Originally defined as those industries which have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have a potential for wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property, they are an interconnected ecosystem of designers, creatives, artists and engineers across the UK and include sub-sectors such as film, TV, music, performing arts, visual arts, video games, advertising, design, photography, architecture, software, publishing, crafts, audio and fashion. According to the DCMS figures, the creative industries contributed an estimated £124.0bn in 2023, accounting for 5.2% of UK gross value added (GVA)[4]. Note that European Value Added is not equivalent to Gross Value Added (GVA), so the size of the industries cannot be compared.
Although Culture or Cultural Heritage is not specifically mentioned as a subsector of the creative industries, the 2001 definition identified the “cultural sector” as intersecting the creative industries and the tourism industry. In the 2025 UK Modern Industrial Strategy Sector Plan for the Creative Industries[5], it acknowledged that the creative industries ecosystem is underpinned by public investment in museums, heritage, and cultural infrastructure, as well as through Arts Council England. In the DCMS report, the Cultural Sector is acknowledged as a separate sector with overlapping subsectors (see image below). According to the DCMS Sectors Economic Estimates Definitions[6], DCMS defines the cultural sector as industries with a cultural object at their centre. Note that this excludes intangible cultural heritage. The cultural sector contributed an estimated £35.0bn in 2023, accounting for 1.5% of UK GVA. The cultural sector’s GVA fell 1.8% from 2022 to 2023, leaving it 4.0% below pre-pandemic (2019) and 11.0% higher in 2023 than in 2010 in real terms.
The following maps present a visualisation of the statistics in the UK 2021 census.
Craft & manufacturing activity, by local authority
Counts of employed residents across 11 industry classes tied to craft, textile and material production — from creative & arts activities through to textiles, leather, wood and metalwork. Figures show usual residents aged 16+ in employment (by industry of their job, not necessarily where they work), summed from ward level up to England & Wales’s 331 local authority districts.
Source: ONS Census 2021, Table TS060 (industry, current, by geography). Boundaries: ONS Open Geography Portal, generalised local authority districts (2022).
[1] https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/cultural-and-creative-industries_en
[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/creative-industries-mapping-documents-2001
[3] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68920e22dc6688ed50878479/industrial_strategy_creative_industries_sector_plan_accessible.pdf
[4] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dcms-economic-estimates-gva-2023-provisional/dcms-economic-estimates-annual-gva-2023-provisional
[5] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68920e22dc6688ed50878479/industrial_strategy_creative_industries_sector_plan_accessible.pdf
[6] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dcms-sectors-economic-estimates-methodology/dcms-sector-economic-estimates-methodology