Women in the UK’s creative industries are building some of the fastest-growing businesses in the country. Between 2022 and 2023, creative industries’ Gross Value Added (GVA) rose by an estimated 4.6% in real terms, according to DCMS economic estimates published in 2025. That is more than four times the growth rate of the UK economy as a whole (1.0%), and the sector now accounts for about 5.5% of total UK GVA. Within it, women-led firms are recording higher average turnover growth than their male-led peers. So the question is no longer whether women can grow creative businesses. The data has answered that. The question is why the finance system still behaves as if they cannot.
Women-led firms are growing turnover faster than male-led peers
The outperformance is not anecdotal. Across sectors, including creative ones, women-led firms are growing turnover faster than male-led and mixed-led businesses. In 2025, female-led companies reported average turnover growth of 22.1%, against 18.0% for male-led firms and 17.8% for mixed-leadership firms. Creative businesses follow the same pattern. For anyone who still needs convincing that backing women is a sound commercial bet rather than a diversity exercise, the evidence keeps pointing the same way.
Small by design: the shape of women-led creative businesses
Creative businesses are overwhelmingly small. As of March 2025, about 93.4% were micro-businesses with fewer than 10 employees, and 77.8% had annual turnover under £250,000. Women-led firms typically start from these smaller bases, yet many show stronger growth trajectories from them. The Data City also found that companies founded and led by women in digital creative industries generated a combined turnover of around £4.6 billion and employed more than 75,000 people. That is a substantial economic contribution from businesses that have, in most cases, had very little access to the capital that fuels scale.
Finance gaps: what still holds women in the UK creative industries back
Access to finance remains the single biggest brake on growth. In a Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (Creative PEC) survey of 896 creative organisations (2024), 72% said they wanted to grow. Yet women-led organisations reported significantly more obstacles to securing appropriate finance than their male-led counterparts. Many said no financial product suited their business model, and that investors struggled to value content-led revenue or intangible assets such as intellectual property.
The Women-Led High-Growth Enterprise Taskforce (2024) put the equity gap in stark terms: for every £1 of UK equity investment, only about 2p reaches fully female-founded businesses. Fewer women apply for funding in the first place, and those who do tend to raise smaller rounds. In creative sectors, where equity is scarcer and debt finance often fits poorly, that 2p shrinks further in practice. If you are weighing up your options, our guide to small business grants is a sensible place to start, because grant income does not require you to give away equity or take on repayments that clash with irregular creative revenue.
The support gap is starting to close, slowly
Some initiatives are already proving what works. The Get Ready for Business Growth programme, funded by Arts Council England and run by the British Library’s Business and IP Centre, supported more than 400 creative individuals between 2022 and 2024. Participants increased turnover by an average of about £33,700 and safeguarded jobs, with many women and people from under-represented backgrounds taking part. It is the kind of targeted, relatively low-cost intervention that delivers measurable returns, and it deserves to be scaled rather than treated as a pilot.
The Creative PEC has also mapped finance options for the sector and found persistent mismatches between what founders need and what investors offer. Its 2024 discovery report calls for sector-specific finance tools, plainer language and better investor-founder alignment. Meanwhile, government sector skills assessments (2024) project that employment in priority creative occupations could grow by 27% by 2035. The demand side of the equation looks strong. The supply of growth capital does not.
What women founders in the creative sector should do now
- Plan your finance mix early. Layer grants, loans and, where appropriate, equity to match the risk and revenue cycles of creative work, rather than accepting the first product a lender offers.
- Learn the metrics investors price. Intellectual property value, recurring revenue and customer growth matter even if your business model looks nothing like tech. Creative PEC research found that investors often misunderstand content-led revenue, so founders who can translate creative value into investor language hold a genuine advantage.
- Use sector-specific networks. Creative UK, regional creative hubs and the British Library’s Business and IP Centre network all offer routes to funders who already understand the sector. Trusted recommendations open doors that cold applications do not.
- Check the Investing in Women Code. Signatories have committed to improving female entrepreneurs’ access to tools, resources and finance, which makes them a warmer first approach than the market at large.
- Get help to move beyond micro. Mentoring, export support and university partnerships, which often come with access to innovation funding, can all bridge the gap from micro to small or medium status.
Outlook: momentum is not the same as scale
Women in the UK’s creative industries have made demonstrable progress. Women-led firms report faster turnover growth than male-led peers, the sector is growing more than four times as fast as the wider economy, and demand for creative labour is projected to rise substantially by 2035. None of that guarantees scale. Finance gaps, structural bias and a fragmented support landscape still decide who gets to grow.
The Rose Review (2019) estimated that women could add up to £250 billion of new value to the UK economy if they started and scaled businesses at the same rate as men. That figure is usually quoted as an opportunity. It is better read as the cost of leaving things as they are. If funding models adapt to recognise creative economic value, and if tailored support becomes easier to find, women-led creative businesses will capture a far larger share of the sector’s growth. The evidence says they will deliver. The system needs to catch up.
Explore our guides on how to write a business plan to scale, how investing works for women founders, and how to raise cash without a bank. For the wider picture, see our facts on women in business.
