As contractor accountants, we like to keep a close eye on the news headlines that relate to the contracting and freelancing industry, and in particular those sectors that we are most involved in. The creative industry is one such area. Today’s blog is in response to the exciting news that, from this term, NextGenAcademy is hosting a brand new course that looks at getting more creative peoples involved in the United Kingdom’s biggest income industries, which are currently being described as experiencing a form of ‘creative starvation’.

This revolutionary course is a Level 3 Extended Diploma that’s equivalent to a full three A-levels, and requires its students to have the usual A- C grading in English and Maths at GCSE level – with a 3.4% year-on-year increase in students taking maths GCSE in 2015, this should be easy for many students to achieve.

The course is designed to specifically address creative digital skill gaps in the following industries:

• Games
• Animation
• Visual Effects (VFX)

Combined, these industries are worth over £6 billion to the UK economy!

So, what does this new course actually include?

Well,the relevant industries took the time to meet up with NextGen to develop a course that would be beneficial to all three industries. The course is therefore broken down to specifically focus on software skills as one integral part, and software and programming as the other.

More than half of the jobs available in the first two industries are focussed on these areas, and even though only 22% of VFX positions place such a strong emphasis here, it’s still important.

To clarify the point even further, software skills shortages dominate the demand in these industries; the figures are shockingly high. Are you ready? 64% of the vacancies in the animation industries, 31% within the games industry and last, but certainly not least, 69% of all vacancies are software skill related in the VFX industry!

These numbers are colossal, and they’re only set to rise if more creative people don’t get more involved. What is even more worrying is that these sectors fail to work efficiently without creative workers adding their invaluable skill sets.

This course has been brought about primarily to address the need for more creative professionals in the different sectors, as the courses that are already readily and widely available, such as Stem, do not cover all of the industry skills and trades that prospective students need to make a difference in this otherwise booming industry.

The given in this entire situation is that the world needs more creative professionals, and with a fabulous course like this in the pipeline, there is no doubt in our minds that the right sort of steps are being take to achieve this. The company has not just set this course up without help, but they’ve interacted with these industries individually and have gone on to focus on their unique needs, which sounds like a good plan to us. Of course, if you’re an existing contractor in the creative industry, then you might not need this sort of course in your locker, but you could probably still do with a helping hand to ensure that your company structure is efficient and that your accounts are in order, and if those sort of concerns sound familiar to you, then the team here at ICS would love to hear from you.

Whether you’re an existing creative freelancer or a prospective one, feel free to contact us online or by phone on 0800 195 3750.We’ve helped many freelancers over the years, so why not get in touch to see how we can help you?