Recruit expert talent for creative industries

Recruitment agencies and knowledge partnerships can help you make the most of the UK's deep creative talent pool.

Talent locations

Creative talent tends to be clustered around public and private sector centres of excellence.

Advertising

London is a global centre, with a higher proportion of workers in advertising and marketing than New York, Sydney, Paris or Amsterdam.

However, over 50% of creative workers are based throughout the rest of the UK. Other major locations, in order of cluster size, are:

  • Manchester, with particular strengths in digital marketing and a new School of Digital Arts
  • Birmingham, with 9 major universities in the area, offering a supply of creative graduates
  • Leeds, the North of England’s largest digital marketing hub
  • Reading and Thames Valley, a major south of England centre, with many hundreds of advertising and marketing companies
  • Bristol
  • Brighton
  • Edinburgh
  • Guildford
  • Glasgow

Film and TV

The UK has an established production infrastructure, a skilled workforce and a well-developed visual effects supply chain.

London continues to be a global media talent hub. However, there are many other clusters around the UK, including:

  • Manchester – Europe’s first purpose built creative and media hub, MediaCity
  • Leeds, home to Screen Yorkshire
  • Northern Ireland – specific tax incentives for the industry and advanced studio facilities have attracted global talent
  • Liverpool
  • Cardiff

Gaming and augmented reality (AR)

The UK has a large games and AR ecosystem, with strong connections between industry and specialist training and education. Talent clusters include:

  • Guildford in Surrey - a major immersive tech hub with over 100 games studios
  • Leamington Spa in Coventry and Warwickshire, with 15% of the UK’s talent in games development, housed in over 80 studios
  • Tees Valley - Teesside University in Middlesborough has over 1,000 students on its games and animation courses
  • Sheffield – the city has a strong arts and crafts tradition, now combining with a large and innovative digital technology community
  • Leeds, with particular academic and industry strengths in immersive tech

Recruitment agencies

There are many specialist recruitment agencies in the UK creative and tech space.

Find out more on the websites of creative and tech recruiters, including Method Resourcing, Hired, Talent International and Opus Recruitment.

Expertise through knowledge transfer

The Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) scheme provides opportunities for businesses who have an idea, but do not have all the talent needed to develop it. The scheme can link your company with an academic or research organisation, providing you with the services of a graduate as an associate.

A KTP is part-funded by a grant, with a contribution also made by the company.

Find more information on the KTP website.

Next steps

Find recruitment consultants who can work with your creative business on the Investment Support Directory.