Government · UK · Department for Culture, Media and Sport
UK Advertising Tops Creative Output at £61 an Hour
Advertising and marketing is the most productive corner of the UK creative industries, producing £61 of output an hour in 2024. That sits above the £47 UK economy average and ahead of every other creative subsector, according to new provisional DCMS official statistics.
Source published Summarised
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Key findings at a glance
- £61 output per hour in the UK advertising and marketing subsector in 2024, the highest of any creative industries subsector
- £104,000 annual output per filled job in advertising and marketing, also the highest across all creative subsectors
- £40 output per hour across the UK creative industries overall in 2024, the largest DCMS sector by gross value added
- £68,000 annual output per job in the creative industries in 2024, the highest of any DCMS sector
- 13.7% real-terms growth in creative industries output per hour between 2019 and 2024
- £54 output per hour in the film, TV, radio and photography subsector in 2024, the second highest creative subsector
- £34 output per hour across all DCMS sectors in 2024, below the wider UK economy
- £47 output per hour for the UK economy as a whole in 2024
- 5.8% rise in publishing subsector output per hour from 2023 to 2024, the largest increase of any creative subsector
What the report covers
DCMS Sector Economic Estimates: Productivity 2024 (provisional) is an official-statistics-in-development release from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, published on 25 June 2026. It measures labour productivity across the DCMS sectors from 2019 to 2024, using gross value added (GVA) per hour worked and, for the first time as a full time series, GVA per filled job. Output per hour is the headline measure because it accounts for different working patterns such as part-time work.
The DCMS sectors covered include the creative industries, the cultural sector, gambling, sport, telecoms, and, for the first time, tourism and civil society. The creative industries are split into nine subsectors grouped by policy theme, among them advertising and marketing, film and TV, publishing, music, and architecture. Regional estimates appear for the first time too, though for 2023 only and excluding tourism and civil society.
For UK marketers, the standout line is at subsector level. Advertising and marketing is the most productive creative subsector by both measures, which reframes how agencies should think about the economic value of the hours they sell. The figures fit a wider pattern of digital and creative strength: see our report on how the UK digital and tech sector raised £8.25bn in equity investment in 2025.
What this means for UK marketers
The number that matters to any UK agency is £61. That is the output advertising and marketing generates per hour, the highest of the nine creative subsectors and well above the £47 average for the whole UK economy. On a per-job basis the gap is wider still: £104,000 of annual output per filled job, comfortably ahead of the £68,000 creative industries average and the £75,000 economy-wide figure. Marketing labour is not a cost centre that happens to sit inside the creative economy. By this measure it is the most economically productive work the creative industries do.
That has three practical consequences. First, pricing. If your hours generate more GVA than almost any other skilled trade, fee structures that race to the bottom understate the value being created. Agencies competing purely on day-rate are leaving margin on the table that the national data says is genuinely there. Second, investment in capability. Creative industries output per hour grew 13.7% in real terms between 2019 and 2024, far faster than the 2.5% managed by the wider economy, and the publishing subsector alone added 5.8% in a single year. Productivity gains compound, so investment in tooling, automation and skills inside a digital marketing function tends to pay back more than the same spend elsewhere.
Third, where the work happens. London creative output per hour reached £61 in 2023 against £13 in Wales, a regional spread that mirrors the whole economy and shapes where talent, salary expectations and client budgets sit. For agencies hiring or pitching outside the capital, that gap is both a cost advantage and a reason to make the productivity case explicitly. The same logic applies to specialisms: high-value channels such as SEO and paid media reward depth of expertise rather than volume of hours. The headline caveat is real, though. DCMS flags falling Labour Force Survey response rates, so treat single-year movements as direction rather than precision and watch the 2027 revision.
How they got the data
The estimates combine GVA data with labour inputs drawn from the ONS productivity hours and productivity jobs series, which rely on the Labour Force Survey, alongside hours-worked estimates from the Annual Population Survey. Current prices are used to report figures within a given year, while chained volume measures (in 2023 prices) are used for comparisons over time so that inflation is stripped out. The 2024 figures are provisional and will be revised when the National Accounts are published later in 2026. Further detail sits in the ONS productivity measures.
DCMS labels this an official-statistics-in-development release. Accreditation of ONS outputs based on the Annual Population Survey was suspended in October 2024 because of falling survey response rates, which adds uncertainty to the productivity estimates. Tourism, civil society and regional breakdowns appear for the first time, so DCMS advises against drawing firm time-series conclusions for those new cuts until the methodology settles at the next annual release in 2027.
Government · UK
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From Department for Culture, Media and Sport · published 25/06/2026