DCMS Deals Dirt on Diversity

New figures published by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) reveal that employment within the UK music industry has some way to go in terms of ethnic diversity. According to the Creative Industries Focus on Employment report, less than 7% of those employed in the ‘Music, performing and visual arts’ industries could be categorised as BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnics).

Acronyms aside, this does not paint a pretty picture- despite a 0.8% rise in BAME employees in 2011, 93.3% of employees in the sector were white- 19 out of every 20 people. Overall, 227,000 jobs were held by white people in the sector in comparison to 16,000 held by BAME individuals.

Interestingly, in the same sector, women claimed the majority of jobs at 51.2%, indicating that gender equality is improving. Women held 124,000 jobs in total in the sector, compared to 119,000 for men- an 18% jump from 2011-2013.

That said, as Music Week rightly points out, the new info doesn’t make a distinction between high level and low level jobs, so its impossible to know if women are breaking through the so called ‘glass ceiling’ as they seem to be in other industries such as tech.

Find out more and download the documents here.