Diversity in marketing industry improving, but not enough

The Creative Diversity report shows that while government statistics show a 12.5% increase in the number of jobs in the creative industries held by BAME individuals between 2013 and 2014. they account for 11% of jobs in creative which is similar to the level of representation in the general working population in the UK.

But with 32% of all creative jobs in London, where 40% of the workforce is BAME, for balanced representation 17.8% of the creative industries workforce should be BAME.

And in some quarters rather than improvement, it is going backward. The percentage of women in the creative industries fell from 37.1% in 2013 to 36.7% last year, even though women hold 47.2% of jobs in the wider UK workforce.

Within advertising and marketing, 57% of white respondents to a recent Advertising Association opinion poll believed that advertising represents the UK’s multicultural society, while only 45% of BAME respondents agreed. And while 41.9% of those working in advertising are women, at senior management level this falls to 25%.

John Kampfner, CEO of CIF, the national membership body for the arts, creative industries and cultural education, said: “This study not only exposes the existing social inequalities in the creative industries workforces but shows that there are hard-headed economic reasons for tackling them. A more diverse workforce is good for organisations and key to accelerating growth.”