Creative industries in Northern Ireland

The creative industries are among the fastest-growing parts of the UK economy  and are recognised as one of the key economic drivers for future growth in Northern Ireland.

Creative employment in Northern Ireland

The Department for Communities (DfC) estimates the number of people in creative employment in 2023 in Northern Ireland at 39,000 or 4.4% of the local workforce.

This includes:

• employees and self-employed individuals working within creative industries
• those doing creative jobs outside the sector

IT software and computer services make up the largest group, employing around 17,000 jobs in 2022.

Creative businesses in Northern Ireland

In 2024, there were 3,695 creative business sites in Northern Ireland, accounting for 3.9% of all business units in Northern Ireland, up 8.8% since 2019.

Northern Ireland had around 93,000 business sites across all sectors in 2024 (estimated from growth trends).

Economic impact of creative industries in Northern Ireland

The creative industries generated £1,601 million in Gross Value Added (GVA) in 2022, equivalent to 3.2% of Northern Ireland’s total GVA. GVA grew 8.0% between 2021-2022 (accounting for inflation), compared with 2.9% growth for the wider economy. Over 2019-2022, creative GVA rose 27.4% (vs 13.9% economy-wide).

IT software and computer services contributed £1,072 million - the largest share - and employed 17,000 people in 2022. Among sub-sectors, museums, galleries and libraries saw the biggest GVA increase (53.8% from 2021-2022).

Source: The Department for Communities bulletin on key economic estimates for the creative industries for Northern Ireland.