The data contained in this repository relates to London's Creative Enterprise Zones. It can be used to review job and business data for each CEZ, as well as several other creative areas across London.
About the data
Sectors
The data relates specifically to creative sector SIC codes (standard industrial classification) as defined by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The list of SIC codes is provided in the repository below (activity_subsector_sic.csv).
Sources
Job counts are from the ONS Business Register & Employment Survey. Job counts are estimated through a survey of a sample businesses throughout the country. The survey takes place annually in September. Job data is currently only available up to the 2021 survey. The data only counts employees; it does not include sole traders/freelancers.
Business counts are from the ONS UK Business Counts. The count is based on active businesses and takes place annually in March. Business data is available up to the 2022 survey. Freelancers/sole traders may be included in these counts if they are registered with Companies House (e.g. as a limited company) at an address within the relevant creative area.
Note that because of the difference in survey months, there may be a lag between job and business trends. For example, job counts taken in 2020 (September) will likely be lower than previous years because they will be affected by Covid-19 related job losses, whereas business counts taken in 2020 (March) will likely not show major fluctuation from previous years because the Covid-19 related impacts won't yet have registered.
Turnover and births & deaths information comes from ONS Interdepartmental Business Register (IDBR). Because of data suppression, it is only available down to local authority level. The data has been scaled to estimate the amount of turnover, births, and deaths per creative area. For example, if a borough has 500 creative businesses producing 50m turnover, we would average 100k turnover per business. If the creative area in that borough has 100 creative businesses, 100 x 100,000 in turnover = 10m throughout the creative area.
For CEZ across two or more authorities, we have used the sum of turnover/births/deaths in the composite authorities as the basis for calculation.
Note that subsector or activity counts for births/deaths may not add up to the figures in the total births/deaths data due to rounding.
As a result, data on turnover, births & deaths should be treated as broad estimates only.
Geographies
Job counts and business counts relate to the best-fit middle super output areas (MSOAs) for the boundary of each Creative Enterprise Zone. The MSOAs have been agreed with CEZ managers.
Turnover and births & deaths have been scaled from local authority-level data to the MSOAs above.
The list of MSOAs is provided in the repository below (cez_msoas.csv).
Guide to spreadsheets
The spreadsheets below provide various configurations of the job and business counts, turnover, and births & deaths data.
Breakdowns are provided for area and aggregate data:
- Area data relates to individual creative areas (i.e. individual Creative Enterprise Zones and non-CEZ comparison areas)
- Aggregate data relates to collections of creative areas (e.g. all CEZ areas, all comparator areas)
For both area and aggregate data, the following configurations are provided per year (listed from most general to most granular):
- Headline data
- Activities (i.e. consumption or production)
- Subsectors (e.g. architecture, photography)
- Activities x subsectors (e.g. consumption - screen and digital, production - screen and digital)
- Specific subsectors by 5-digit SIC code (job and business counts only)
Guide to Creative Enterprise Zones data explorer
The data has been built into an interactive explorer for quick visualisation and analysis, which is available here. The explorer takes around five seconds to load initially and works best on a laptop or desktop (not mobile). Tips for using the explorer:
- 2022 data is currently only available for business counts
- Export any of the graphs as a .png using the small icon in the top-right of a graph
- In the subsector graphs, single-click a legend item to remove it from the graph, or double-click a legend item to only show that item on the graph
Request Access to Creative Enterprise Zones (CEZ) data repository
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