If the UK’s universities wither, so will its creative industries

The news that English universities’ teaching grants are set to be cut by another £100 million in the next academic year was bitter but not unexpected news for a university that has already seen the value of its allocation slashed by 80 per cent over the past six years.

Before this latest body blow, the news agenda had gone quiet for higher education. Since the publication of last autumn’s Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper, which provided clarity, guidance and some hope, universities have seen and heard nothing more of substance from government despite a growing financial crisis in the sector.  

In the same week last month, the Office for Students and the House of Commons Education Select Committee issued stark warnings over the financial stability and continued existence of universities. Yet the King’s Speech had nothing to say about higher education. 

Clarity and action are critically needed, yet now universities are being hit by further bad news. Government investment in undergraduate teaching via the Strategic Priorities Grant, which is already below half the level that it costs universities, is set to be cut by more than 7 per cent.

Universities are the backbone of the UK’s infrastructure, driving innovation and national and regional growth. In our home borough of Lewisham, for instance, my institution Goldsmiths, University of London, contributes over £66 million to the local economy.

Universities also keep the UK at the forefront of new discovery. And that is as true of the creative industries as it is of the life sciences, advanced manufacturing or any of the other areas of UK strength that the government has pinpointed for their potential to drive growth.  

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As well as being the UK’s number one university for academic progression beyond students’ academic baselines, Goldsmiths is one of the world’s leading creative universities, with alumni including the sculptor Antony Gormley, the author Bernardine Evaristo and the film director Steve McQueen. We are also home to the CoSTAR Foresight Lab, a key part of a multimillion-pound government project aimed at ensuring that the UK’s creative industries do not lose out in the global race over emerging technologies and platforms – and that the UK doesn’t see its share of a £124 billion-a-year industry diminish.

In addition, we’ve just launched a new research institute designed as a shared working space, connecting industry, policymakers, funders, investors and academics. The Futures of Creativity Institute (FOCI) will provide an agile, creative-first connector that rapidly turns frontier knowledge into real-world experimentation into ways of meeting sustainability concerns and reducing carbon footprint. It will also give creative practitioners agency in shaping what comes next for the creative industries, at a time when they are under pressure from challenges of AI.  

But to ensure the UK’s ongoing success in those industries, we need to be able to offer opportunity alongside innovation. Our research expertise is vital to this, too, and the close relations we are developing with creative business leaders are geared to produce the graduates from all backgrounds that the sector wants and needs. But by neglecting to adequately fund the teaching half of our university, the government is undermining that pipeline.

It is imperilling the research and innovation, too. Like all good clichés, the notion of universities as ecosystems is true, and there has to be a balance of focus and investment. Put simply, if institutions don’t exist then where will the incubators of creativity for public good live?  

Back in 2024, then Downing Street chief-of-staff Sue Gray had a so-called shit list of big issues that urgently needed to be fixed. Universities were said to be high up on it. Someone in Number 10 needs to dig around in the back of its sofas to find said list and kickstart this government. The stasis for higher education and the damage that is doing to the broader economy can only be resolved if the issue is brought back to the top of the political agenda. 

David Oswell is interim vice-chancellor at Goldsmiths, University of London. 

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The UK’s first creative industries skills audit: What it means for universities

The UK cannot sustain its global creative leadership without a skills system that is more agile, more responsive and more collaborative. And higher education is central to that transformation – not as a passive supplier of graduates, but as an active partner in shaping the future of the sector.

That is the clear message set out by the UK’s Creative Industries Skills Audits, published last month by the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (Creative PEC) and Work Advance. Commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Creative Industries Council (CIC), the audits offer unprecedentedly granular insight on the critical jobs and critical skills needed in a sector that has long struggled with fragmented data and inconsistent labour market intelligence.

After reviewing hundreds of studies, analysing thousands of data points and engaging more than 200 employers, freelancers and policymakers and 1,300 survey respondents, we see a sector with enormous potential. Nearly half of creative employers expect to grow their workforce and projections published earlier this month by Skills England suggest the UK creative industries will need more than 416,000 additional workers by 2035.

Many employers anticipate rising demand for digital, technical and sustainability skills, driven by AI, hardware and software upgrades, and the transition to net zero. Yet the same employers report that skills shortages and gaps are already constraining their ambitions, with a fifth of firms experiencing skills challenges having to delay innovation or scale back growth or investment plans.

Sometimes specialised technical or advanced digital skills are the hardest to find, but often the issue is a lack of more generic business-critical capabilities – planning, communication, teamworking, finance, marketing and people management. It is this alchemy of skills that we must look to develop, at every stage of the education system.

In addition, the pace of change, and particularly innovation and technological advancement in this vanguard sector, means skills needs evolve rapidly. Creative industries employers are twice as likely to say their skills challenges lie with experienced staff than with entry-level talent, often due to technological advancements and career progression without prerequisite training. This underscores the need to give as much weight to workforce upskilling as we do to building the pipeline of new talent.

It is hard to overstate the role that higher education needs to play. Three-quarters of people working in the creative industries have degrees, and the jobs the audits suggest will be in greatest demand – software developers, designers, advertising executives, architects – are highly skilled. But the deteriorating finances of providers could hamper the sector’s ability to play that role.

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Amid the cuts to creative courses announced by various higher education institutions recently, a primary concern is safeguarding routes into creative careers. There is an urgent need to reverse past policy decisions that deprioritised creative disciplines such as design, music, journalism and information services. We welcome the commitment in last year’s Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper to reform England’s Strategic Priorities Grant to ensure alignment of funding with priority sectors such as the creative industries, but it is worrying to hear that the overall amount of money allocated to the SPG is set to be cut again.

Equally, this isn’t about preserving the status quo. Universities need to react to the audits by embedding business, digital and sustainability skills as standard in creative degrees. There are already examples that can be scaled. Some providers are offering modules on business skills for creative practice, AI or carbon literacy. And some are introducing students to project-based delivery models or constructing working studio environments that strengthen understanding of the industry’s forms and functions, ensuring learners are equipped with the full range of skills they will need to build successful, often freelance, careers.

In addition, more flexible, modular provision is crucial. This should include break points in degree programmes, as well as short courses, potentially stackable microcredentials and more blended learning options that build in industry placements. In England, the new lifelong learning entitlement (LLE) will provide a new mechanism of loan funding for shorter modules and higher technical qualifications (HTQs), but eligibility is limited to modules deemed to be aligned with skills needs, and it is not clear that this will cover the creative industries’ full range of needs.

We also need “technical excellence networks” to strengthen the skills ecosystem in cities and regions. These should promote deeper and more sustained partnership between universities, further education providers (including England’s new Technical Excellence Colleges), employers, industry bodies and local policymakers.

These could play a pivotal role in addressing rapidly shifting technical skills areas like createch, green design and AI programming. They could provide continuing professional development for teaching professionals. And they could facilitate industry exchange schemes (as seen in construction) that promote knowledge exchange, address specialist teacher shortages and mitigate the financial insecurity often associated with freelance work.

This is the moment to build a system where universities, colleges, employers and freelancers work together to anticipate change, share expertise and co‑create the skills the sector needs. But it can’t be done without vision, determination – and sustainable funding.

Heather Carey is director of Work Advance and co-author of the Creative Industries Skills Audits. The audits are published in collaboration with the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (Creative PEC), funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.