Executive summary
This is a potentially transformational moment for Coventry's creative industries. With wide-ranging creative and tech expertise, leading games cluster status with Warwickshire, strong industry collaboration from its universities and huge placemaking potential post UK City of Culture 2021, all it needs now is the right targeted policy actions to deliver lasting economic and social value to the city, its people and the wider region.
Coventry's creative industries represent a significant economic force that extends far beyond traditional creative boundaries. The city hosts 1,290 creative businesses comprising 13% of all local enterprises, directly employing 7,250 creative and cultural workers.
However, the sector's true impact is much larger - approximately 14,500 workers (circa 9% of the entire city workforce) are engaged in creative occupations, including across the broader economy, from designers at Jaguar Land Rover to marketing teams in utility companies. When combined with Warwickshire, the region boasts over 7,000 creative businesses and 80 game development studios, forming one of the UK's most significant creative clusters.
These creative and tech strengths combine with Coventry’s strong business clusters, such as automotive, advanced manufacturing and healthcare, to drive createch - a fusion of creative innovation and cutting-edge technology that is enabling the development of new products, services and experiences.
However, alongside this context of creative and business strength the city is facing some urgent challenges that need to be addressed head on. These include:
- a lack of affordable creative spaces, venues, and specialised facilities is a major challenge
- tourism and branding need a stronger, coordinated city identity to attract investment and visitors
- business support services are fragmented across different authorities causing uneven access. This lack of creative industry specialist support hinders handling of key sector concerns, such as around intellectual property (IP), finance or AI adoption. These two factors often mean that creative businesses find it difficult to get the support they need
- short-term funding cycles cause instability, hindering business investment
- skills shortages and limited career opportunities lead to poor graduate retention; with only 15-20% of Coventry University creative graduates staying in the region, compared with a lower still 12% retention across all courses at the University of Warwick
- freelance creative work is often uncertain, poorly paid and lacks career progression, with limited business focused support available
- the City of Culture Trust collapse caused significant uncertainty; with economic pressures pushing many businesses into survival mode, limiting planning and collaboration
Fortunately, on the other side of the balance sheet, the city has a vast array of opportunities that can be harnessed to solve many of these challenges and put Coventry on a stronger economic path, these include:
- Business Development: specialist support, better funding access, and stronger freelancer networks can boost growth in all creative areas
- Cluster Development: building on the success of CWX - Coventry & Warwickshire Exchange – gives potential for a unified creative cluster with physical spaces, brokerage, and university ties
- Skills and Innovation: modernised university curricula, more bootcamps, and AI adoption support can solve workforce issues and position Coventry as a creative and tech leader
- infrastructure: new projects like the City Centre Cultural Gateway offer creative spaces, venues, and hubs to transform the city
- Tourism and Branding: relaunching Destination Coventry and new partnerships help rebuild the city’s cultural brand and leverage immersive and live performance strengths
Having explored the statistics of the city, its wide-ranging activities, alongside challenges and opportunities, this report sets out recommendations to begin ‘moving-the-dial’, including:
Business and freelancer support
- Providing targeted creative sector support with specialist advisors
- Broadening funding options beyond grants, including venture capital and angel investors
- Building freelancer networks offering co-working spaces, training, and advocacy
Networking and partnerships
- Launching a creative cluster initiative led by a dedicated Cluster Manager
- Creating a central business hub to drive collaboration and innovation
- Offering brokerage services to connect businesses, universities, and other sectors
Skills and workforce development
- Expanding digital and AI training within business support programmes
- Aligning education with industry needs and strengthen graduate retention
- Promoting creative bootcamps and apprenticeships for upskilling
Places and spaces
- Increasing creative spaces through temporary, repurposed, new and affordable developments
- Addressing safety in creative areas and integrate space needs into major city projects
- Exploring innovative business models to speed up the development of places and spaces
Tourism, visitor economy and branding
- Positioning eSports as a flagship event, leveraging university expertise
- Promoting Coventry’s unique live experiences blending arts, games, and technology
- Developing a unified brand and marketing strategy for the creative sector
Public funding and Government plicies
- Focusing a creative cluster initiative on high-growth sectors and maintain a strong project pipeline
- Capitalising on opportunities from the government’s recently published Modern Industrial Strategy, including immersive tech and gaming clusters