Official statistics published by the UK government reveal that white males are dominating the creative industries, and that digital is challenging design to become the nation's key creative sector.
A report published by the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in late July charted strong economic growth in its sectors ? but also highlighted a lack of racial and gender diversity.
In 2016, 55.6 per cent of jobs in DCMS sectors (excluding tourism) were carried out by men, compared with 50.4 per cent in the UK as a whole. This varied from 71.7 per cent in the digital sector to 33.7 per cent in charities and community organisations.
But the bias towards men was far greater in figures relating to the creative industries specifically. In 2016, 63 per cent of job roles were filled by men and 37 per cent by women. In comparison, men made up 53 per cent of workers across the whole of the UK and women 47 per cent. The figures did show some improvement. A report that looked more closely at employment within each sector showed that the number of women working in design and designer fashion increased by 23 per cent between 2015 and 2016 ? the second highest increase across all of the nine creative industries sub-sectors.
And architecture saw the third biggest rise in number of female workers within the creative industries, with an increase of 13.2 per cent between 2015 and 2016.
The issue of gender inequality in design has been a much-discussed topic of late....