The industry in Scotland
The Scottish Government’s Economic Strategy identifies creative industries (including digital content and technologies) as one of six key sectors where Scotland enjoys International competitive advantage and which possess high-growth potential and the capacity to boost productivity. The strategy places equal importance on “technologies that contribute to the development of these key sectors”.
The digital markets and enabling technologies industry encompasses the following sub-sectors:
Digital markets:
- Digital media, including games, social networking and mobile applications (encompassing creative video, broadcast and publishing)
- ICT markets
- Environmental applications / cleantech
Enabling technologies:
- Informatics and computing (including software)
- Devices and systems
- Communications and networks
- Advanced engineering
Digital markets and enabling technologies and its sub-sectors harness the potential of Scotland’s specific cross-cutting technology strengths that require to be developed to help growth companies and industries reach their full-potential, in particular Financial Services, Energy and Life Sciences.
- current data estimates that there are around 4,500 companies in the sector in Scotland (2005).
- the GVA Annual Average Growth Rate for the sector between 1998 and 2005 was 4.1 per cent.
- the sector produced a GVA per employee of £65,291 (2005).
The above figures are drawn from SIC data and only provide an approximation of the industry in Scotland. Scottish Enterprise is currently developing a source book for the whole industry including sub-sectors, which will form the baseline for a fuller analysis.
Find out about current initiatives to support the industry
All figures taken from ONS – Annual Business Inquiry.