About this explorer
The Creative Skills Explorer is a visual index of the four core skill areas identified across the UK creative industries, inspired by the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC) Skills Audit and its 11 accompanying sub-sector skills report (2026).
Where the data comes from
Skills, categories and counts have been generated by ChatGPT using analysis of the Creative Industries PEC Skills Report and broken into the four core skill areas (Technical, Digital, Transversal, Business-critical) for each of the 11 sub-sectors, using a mixture of direct examples referenced in the official report and additional skills extrapolated from the context of the sub-sector skills audits. For this reason, any data on this site should be viewed as experimental, exploratory and designed to facilitate discussion regarding skill requirements within the UK creative industries, rather than as a definitive catalogue of the skills shortages for each sub-sector. With the world of work shifting so regularly, the hope is that this tool will make it easier for interested parties to have more critical conversations about the skills needs within the creative industries - what is showing up, what is missing and what might not yet be on the horizon.
How the descriptions work
Because a skill label alone (for example "GEO / GenAI engine optimisation" or "print and mailout process") is not always self-explanatory to someone outside the industry, each unique skill is accompanied by a short, plain-English one-sentence description generated with an AI model. These descriptions are aimed at general audiences and learners and are intended to aid comprehension only, not act as a definitive explanation of each skill.
What you can do
- Browse any sub-sector to see its full four-category skills dictionary.
- Look up any individual skill in plain English and see every sub-sector where it appears.
- Compare sub-sectors to find overlapping skills — as a matrix, a multi-sector picker, or a ranking of the most transferable skills.
The data in this site has been generated using ChatGPT, based on analysis of the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre Skills Audit (2026). Some of the suggested skills for each sub-sector and skill area may not appear directly in the Creative Industries PEC report and therefore any data on this site should be treated as experimental and exploratory, rather than as a definitive representation of creative industry skills shortages. All skill descriptions within the site are AI-generated for accessibility.