Creative graduate pathways within and beyond the creative industries

Ruth Bridgstock, Ben Goldsmith, Jess Rodgers, Greg Hearn

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780367075750
• eBook ISBN: 9781315317762
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Examining pathways from creative education to work, and preparation for these pathways within higher education programs, in the light of long standing labour debates, this book explores the creative launch experiences, destinations, and contributions of graduates emerging into an enormously diverse and heterogeneous creative workforce. Coming from university degree programs that tend to focus on the development of specialist creative disciplinary skills, graduates emerge into the diverse workforce with fairly narrow career identities. With contributions ranging from quantitative analyses of large longitudinal data sets to in-depth qualitative cases, the book aims to provide a range of studies that speak to the complexity found in creative careers. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Education and Work.

Digital technology and creative arts career patterns in the UK creative economy

Roberta Comunian^a, Alessandra Faggian^b and Sarah Jewell^c

^aDepartment for Culture, Media and Creative Industries, King’s College, London, UK; ^bAED Economics Department, The Ohio State University, Columbus OH, USA; ^cSchool of Economics, University of Reading, Reading, UK

In this article, we ask what role both digital and artistic human capital play in the creative economy by examining employment patterns of digital technology (DT) and creative arts and design (CAD) graduates. Using student micro-data collected by the Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA) in the United Kingdom, we investigate the characteristics and location determinants of these graduates. The article deals specifically with understanding how digital and creative skills in the UK are embedded across industries, or are concentrated in creative sub-sectors. Furthermore, it explores the role that these graduates play in each of the different sectors and their financial rewards. Findings suggest that digital technology graduates tend to concentrate in the software and gaming sub-sector of the creative industries, but also are likely to be in embedded creative jobs outside of the creative industries. DT and CAD graduates are more likely to be in a creative job than other graduates. Although they are more likely to be in full-time employment than part-time or self-employment, DT graduates suffer from a higher level of unemployment than CAD graduates.

Introduction

A recent report from National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA 2011) highlights the role played by higher education in the creative digital economy and emphasises the important cross-over between artistic skills and STEM skills.¹ However, there is a lack of comparative knowledge regarding what kinds of creative careers are undertaken by creative arts and design (CAD) and digital technology (DT) graduates, including their economic rewards and job patterns. The current article argues that, in order to understand better the roles and importance of digital technologies in the creative economy, we first need a better understanding of the role played by digital technology skills in relation to creative skills, both within and outside the creative industries.

The article aims to address this specific gap, exploring the relationship between creative arts and digital technology skills in the creative economy in the UK. It considers the roles of both DT and CAD graduates in the creative labour market and offers a profile of their occupations, including the industry in which they are employed and their salary. It also studies which factors influence the probability of these graduates finding a creative job (in or outside of the creative industries).

The article is divided into 4 sections. Section 1 introduces the literature and previous research in the field. Section 2 briefly describes the data and methodology used. Section 3 presents the results. Finally, Section 4 discusses the findings, presents a conclusion and further possible future research avenues.

Research landscape: the creative economy and creative and DT skills

The intrinsic use of DT is a key factor driving most of the sectors of contemporary economies, but it is said to play a fundamental role in the creative industries. For example, digital technology plays an ever growing role in the distribution and commercialisation of creative content, within the creative supply chain, and also in the creation of new markets for creative and cultural products (Potts et al. 2008). Moreover, Potts and Cunningham (2008) questioned the narrow perspective of considering the ‘creative industries’ as a sector of the economy; instead they argue for an ‘innovation model’...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction: Creative graduate pathways within and beyond the creative industries
• 1. Digital technology and creative arts career patterns in the UK creative economy
• 2. Embedded creative workers and creative work in education
• 3. Creative work careers: pathways and portfolios for the creative economy
• 4. The careers of fine artists and the embedded creative
• 5. The rise of the embedded designer in the creative industries
• Index