Winning and losing in the creative industries: An analysis of creative graduates’ career opportunities across creative disciplines

Abstract Following earlier work looking at overall career difficulties and low economic rewards faced by graduates in creative disciplines, the paper takes a closer look into the different career patterns and economic performance of 'bohemian graduates' across different creative disciplines, namely Advertising, Architecture, Crafts, Design, Film and Television, Fine Art, Music, Performing Arts, Technology and Writing and publishing. While it is widely acknowledge in the literature that careers in the creative field tends to be unstructured, often relying on part-time and temporary work as well as on low wages, our knowledge of how these characteristics differs across the creative industries and occupational sectors is very limited. The paper therefore explores the different trajectory and career patterns experienced by graduate in different creative disciplinary fields and their ability to enter creative occupation and higher level of salary. Data from the Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA) are presented, articulating a complex picture of the reality of finding a creative occupation for creative graduates. While students of some disciplines struggle to find full-time work and to enter the creative economy, for other students in different creative fields full-time occupation is a norm. While most creative graduates show lower salaries than other graduates, for some disciplines the wage gap is minimal, while for others it consistent and extreme. Geography plays a crucial role also in offering graduates opportunities in creative occupations and higher salaries. The findings are contextualised in the New Labour cultural policy framework and the hype surrounding the creative industries that has characterised the last decade and conclusions are draw on whether the creative 2 industries policy construct has hidden a very problematic reality of winners and losers in the creative economy