Creative & Cultural Skills to co-deliver new £2 million Creative Careers Programme

A new industry-led Creative Careers Programme will improve careers advice, broaden recruitment practices and develop new apprenticeship standards, raising awareness of employment opportunities in the sector.

This programme will be delivered by Creative & Cultural Skills in partnership with ScreenSkills and the Creative Industries Federation. It intends to reach more than 160,000 students by 2020, while around 2 million young people will be able to access better advice about pursuing a creative career.

This was announced today by Margot James, Minister for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, as part of a number of updates on the creative industries sector deal, including a £4 million programme to help scale up creative enterprises in Bristol, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands, £2 million to continue the ‘Get it Right’ campaign with industry until 2021 and investments in the Digital Schoolhouse programme and UK Games Fund.

Of the funding for the £14 million Creative Careers Programme, £2 million is allocated for a specific programme to improve careers advice and access to jobs, including work-related ‘encounters’ for young people, training for Enterprise Coordinators and support for employers to help them explore ways to broaden their approaches to recruitment. Creative & Cultural Skills and ScreenSkills will also work to develop the most urgently needed apprenticeship standards. Government will provide £2 million funding to kick-start the programme and £12 million in-kind support has been secured from industry to-date.

Creative & Cultural Skills chief executive, Simon Dancey, said:

“Creative & Cultural Skills is delighted to be working with ScreenSkills and the Creative Industries Federation on the development and delivery of the Creative Careers Programme. In partnership with key stakeholders and our world leading creative and cultural industries, we will together support careers advisers, teachers, parents and guardians, and thousands of young people to better understand the sector and the range of careers within it. This ambitious programme will encourage the industry to open its doors, ensuring we are accessible to all so the next generation of talent can join us and help us thrive for years to come.”

Creative Industries Federation chief executive, Alan Bishop, said:

“The quality and diversity of talent working in our creative industries has been central to its growth and world-leading success. We are hugely excited about our role mobilising industry’s engagement in this programme, inspiring young people to consider careers across the creative economy and helping the next generation of talent to discover the exciting opportunities that lie ahead.”

Seetha Kumar, CEO of ScreenSkills, the skills body for the UK’s screen industries, said:

“It is really important to attract bright young talent into creative industries such as film, TV and video games so we are really pleased to be taking the lead in transforming online careers information for hundreds of thousands of school, college and university students across the country.”