The creative and digital industries are transformative by nature – creativity and advances in technology when applied together have been responsible for heralding every change in the way humans work, ever. But recent history, with the invention of the internet and platforms to connect people across the world to information and each other, is heralding a new age for these industries and shaping the way we live, work and engage with the world around us as at an unprecedented rate. Automation and AI will replace much of the workforce in the coming decades – all except those responsible for the ideas and programming around them of course. In fact, the creative and digital industries jobs are perhaps the most protected from automation.

Today, the most valuable companies on the planet are businesses in new industries made possible by creative minds and new digital technologies – Amazon, Apple and Google.

The UK’s creative industries export £46bn in goods and services across the world from sectors including advertising, film and TV, architecture, publishing, music, design, games, museums and galleries, fashion, crafts, and software and hardware development. According to the Creative Industries Federation, the UK’s creative industries contributed over £91.8bn to the UK economy – and are the fastest growing sectors combined in the UK.

These industries are diverse in the types of businesses within them – freelancers and micro-businesses, start-ups and SMEs and organisations like the BBC all contribute to it. Co-working and maker spaces across the country are opening rapidly to satisfy the needs of a growing range of businesses taking part. There has never been a better time to join in.