The Industrial Strategy: Creative Industries Sector Deal aims to increase UK
creative industry exports by 50% within 5 years, claiming there is a “great deal of
untapped potential in the sector.” It also identifies small company size as a particular challenge to creative industry exports.

Our research, however, shows that this is not true for at least one cluster of creative industries based at Baltic Creative in Liverpool where 69 per cent of tenants export.

The mean company size of exporters is 3.2 FTE, in line with the national UK creative company average size of 3.3 FTE. The turnover of these firms is highly dependent on overseas income. Over one-third of exporters earn more than 50 per cent of their annual income from exports. Company owners report that their main concern around trade is Brexit. Europe is their main trade partner with 90 percent of exporting companies trading with the EU.