UK Games Industry Census 2020

Understanding diversity in the
UK games industry workforce
Dr. Mark Taylor
UK Games
Industry Census
February 2020 |

Report author:
Dr. Mark Taylor – Senior Lecturer, Sheffield Methods Institute
In collaboration with:
Luke Hebblethwaite – Insight & Innovation Manager, Ukie
For questions about this report,
please contact Ukie at:
hello@ukie.org.uk
+44 207 534 5800

@uk_ie

Contents
Introduction 5
Executive summary 8
1. Who did the census? 10
1.1 Job role 10
1.2 Employment contract type 12
1.3 Supervision and seniority 13
1.4 Time in the sector 14
1.5 Organisation size 15
1.6 Location 16
1.7 Hours worked 17
2. Who works in games? 18
2 .1 Age 19
2.2 Ethnic group 20
2.3 Nationality 22
2.4 Gender 23
2.5 Sexuality 27 2.6 Caring responsibilities 29
2.7 Long-term conditions 30
2.8 Neurodiversity 31
2.9 Social background 32
2.10 School type 34
3. Job roles 36
3.1 Job roles by gender 36
3.2 Job roles by ethnic group 38
3.3 Job roles by social background 39
3.4 Seniority by social background 40
4. Nationality 41
4.1 Nationality and job role 42
4.2 Nationality, gender and ethnic group 43
5. Education 44
5.1 Qualifications 44 5.2 Education and job role 46
6. Mental health 48
6.1 Mental health conditions 48
6.2 Anxiety and depression by job role 49
6.3 Anxiety and depression by seniority 50
6.4 Anxiety and depression by gender 51

and LGBTQ+ status
7. Next steps 53
8. Methodological appendix 55
8.1 Questionnaire design 55
8.2 Recruitment 57
8.3 Weighting 58
8.4 Job classification 58
Acknowledgements 59

4 | UK Games Industry Diversity Census4 | UK Games Industry Census
DR JO TWIST – CEO UKIE
“By conducting this census, we
now have a benchmark that
can lay the foundations for the
creation of a truly diverse and
inclusive sector for the future.”

Introduction | 5
We know that games businesses across the country have
recognised that placing equality, inclusivity and diversity
at the heart of their work is critical to their success as
creative, innovative world leaders. But we also know that
it has been hard to do so without robust, reliable data to
help guide them.

This report, compiled and produced independently
by the University of Sheffield, decisively changes that.
This census gathered anonymised and aggregated data
from more than 3,200 people working in the sector,
delivering what we believe to be the most extensive and
authoritative analysis of the diversity of a national games
industry’s workforce ever conducted.

It reveals insights such as our youth, which forms the
backbone of our thriving sector, with two thirds of our
workforce 35 or under. 28% of our workforce are non-UK nationals, making us a truly international industry. We’re
a welcoming industry, as over a fifth of our sector are
LGBTQ+. Black, Asian and minority ethnic representation
is also higher than the overall creative industries and
sectors such as music, publishing and film/TV, as well
as slightly above the average across the national
working population.

But being transparent about who we are also means
facing up to some challenges. Female representation in
the games is lower than in the overall cultural and creative
industries and considerably less than the national
working average.
Reported levels of anxiety and depression are
significantly above the national average – especially in
junior and mid-tier roles. BAME representation also drops
amongst those in more senior positions.
Dr. Jo Twist OBE – CEO, Ukie
It’s important to keep in mind why we’ve taken such a
frank look at our industry. By conducting this census, we
now have a benchmark that can lay the foundations for
the creation of a truly diverse and inclusive sector for
the future. The newly launched #RaiseTheGame pledge
is an excellent example of how businesses can be more
representative and inclusive, which enriches the diversity
of what we create. It brings together the sector to share
the goal of building a diverse workforce, providing long
term support to one another and giving us the best
chance of making that ambition a reality.

We know we have to work hard to create diverse,
supportive and inclusive workplaces and the sector has
already taken great steps. This world-leading research
is an invaluable tool to help businesses of all shapes and
sizes see how those measures can make a real difference.
Introduction

6 | UK Games Industry Census
DR. MARK TAYLOR – SENIOR LECTURER, SHEFFIELD METHODS INSTITUTE
“We hope that this report
has helped to make sense of
the industry as it stands, and
we’re optimistic about what’s
going to come next.”

Introduction | 7
The UK Games Industry Census is the result of a
collaboration between the University of Sheffield, the
University of Leeds, and Ukie, supported by the Arts
& Humanities Research Council.
Official statistics on the labour force aren’t well-suited
to games. We know a lot about the diversity of people
working in other sectors, such as the other screen
industries, because of large, nationally-representative
datasets run by the Office for National Statistics.
This isn’t true for games, partly reflecting the fact that
it’s a comparatively young industry. It’s also fast-moving,
which means that our understanding needs to be kept up-
to-date. If the games workforce looked a particular way
a few years ago, we can’t be confident that this is still the
case. This report represents our approach to addressing
this imbalance. We’ve aimed to understand diversity in a broad sense. For
this reason, as well as interrogating key elements such as
gender and ethnicity, we’ve also asked questions around
long-term health conditions, sexuality, and people’s social
backgrounds. In this report, we’ve written dedicated
sections on nationality, education, and mental health, to
see how these crucial aspects vary by people’s jobs
and their characteristics.
The work that’s included here wouldn’t have been
possible without the support of the AHRC, or the
support of our colleagues at Leeds and Sheffield – most
importantly Helen Thornham and Jedrzej Niklas – but
it also wouldn’t have been possible without a significant
buy-in from people working in the games industry. The
support that we’ve had from people in across the sector
has been absolutely essential to getting this report to
where it is. This report aims to answer a wide range
Dr. Mark Taylor – Senior Lecturer,
Sheffield Methods Institute
of questions about the UK games industry workforce,
but it also represents a starting point for how we can
understand who works in games. In addition to further
analysis of the data that we describe in this report, we’re
also hoping to undertake further survey work in future to
help monitor how these figures are changing over time,
as well as more research to aim to better understand the
reasons why the games workforce looks as it does, and
how this might change in the future.

But, in the meantime, the biggest thanks should go to the
3,208 people whose data we’ve analysed for this report.
Analysing surveys is only possible when people are
kind enough to spend time answering them, and we’ve
been blown away by the response from people working
throughout the games industry. We hope that this report
has helped to make sense of the industry as it stands, and
we’re optimistic about what’s going to come next.

8 | Executive summary
The UK Games Industry Census is a first-of-its-kind
report, delivering the most comprehensive and detailed
assessment of diversity within the UK games industry
workforce ever conducted.

Written by Dr. Mark Taylor of the University of Sheffield
and funded via the Arts & Humanities Research Council,
this independent analysis focuses on three main areas:
the kinds of work that games industry workers do, their
personal characteristics, and their backgrounds. By
asking questions that could be compared against those
from other sectors, national datasets or by digging into
how multiple characteristics fit together, we were able
to gain a very clear view of both areas where games can
celebrate and where clear challenges lie.

This census was completed by over 3,200 games
workers, or around 20% of the overall workforce, between
September and October 2019. By using both open and
targeted recruitment methods, we were able to ensure a
truly representative sample of people working across
the sector. The UK games industry workforce is
highly international – 19% of workers are
from the EU/EEA, and a further 9% from the
rest of the world – with respondents listing 88
different countries as where they spent most of
their time in childhood. International workers make
up a third of core games production art and programming
roles and are more likely to work in senior, mid-level and
junior roles in the industry, but feature less in managerial
and directorial positions.

The games sector is a young industry, with two thirds of
people working in the sector aged 35 or under. But 54% of
people in the industry have worked in the sector for five
years or more.

10% of people working in games are Black, Asian
or minority ethnic (BAME). This is a slightly higher
percentage than in the national working population,
and higher than both the overall creative industries and
specific sectors such as music, publishing and film / TV.
However, it is lower than the equivalent figure for IT and software, as
well as below
the average in
the working-age
population. While
BAME workers can be
found broadly equally in
all job roles, with a small skew towards more non-sector
specific roles, they are noticeably less represented in
senior positions.
70% of people working in the games industry are male,
compared to 28% female and 2% non-binary workers.
Female representation in the workforce is significantly
under the national average of those in work, as well as
less than in cultural and creative roles more generally, but
is similar to the proportion of women working in Film / TV,
and above that of the general IT / software sector.

Migration is a key factor of both ethnic and gender
diversity; while 28% of the overall games workforce in
general holds non-UK nationalities, this rises to 40% for
Executive summary

Executive summary | 9
BAME workers and 35% of female workers.

62% of the video games workforce come from house –
holds where the main earner worked in a managerial /
professional role. This proportion is higher than every
other creative sector aside from publishing and only low –
er than those found in roles such as doctors, lawyers and
journalists. This ratio is still comparable to that of national
broadcasters such as the BBC and Channel 4.

81% of the industry is educated to at least undergraduate
level, rising to 88% for core games production roles in
art or programming. This is considerably above the 57%
average for the cultural and creative industries. 27% of
workers hold a game-specific qualification, rising to over
half of workers in games design and art roles. More com-
monly, workers have qualifications in STEM subjects at
31%, increasing to 60% for workers in programming roles.
12% of the industry workforce attended an independent
or fee-paying school, which is nearly double the national
average of 7%. This figure rises to 20% of the workforce
amongst directors and CEOs. 21% of people working in games are LGBTQ+, while 79%
are heterosexual. This is a significantly high proportion
of LGBTQ+ workers, with other data sources indicating
that heterosexual people make up between 93-97% of the
national population.

At 2%, non-binary representation in the UK games
industry workforce is higher than the national average,
which is estimated at 0.4%. Trans people make up 3% of
the games industry workforce, which again is above the
estimated 1% within the national population.
21% of people working in the games industry live with a
chronic physical health condition. This is higher than the
overall working-age population, where 13% report long
term physical issues.

31% of respondents to the census reported that they live
with anxiety, depression or both, considerably above
the national average of 17%. Individuals working in junior
or mid-level roles were more likely to report that they had anxiety and / or depression, with higher levels of
depression also reported among Directors/CEOs of
smaller companies.

3.5% of respondents reported that they worked 51 hours
per week or more. Three quarters of all respondents
reported working a standard full-time working week
of between 33-40 hours.

These findings, as well as the further detail found
throughout this report, reveals the complex and unique
make-up of the UK games workforce. While there are
many positive stories within the data, it is clear there
are some key challenges that the industry must also
understand and address.

Going forward, the sector will need to build both short
and long-term strategies that continue to help support
and retain existing talent, as well as encourage
engagement and recruitment among those who
are less well represented.

10 | Who did the census?
1 .1 Job role
The first question people were asked was about their job
role. They were presented with a wide range of categories
and asked which of them they carry out in their job.
Respondents could tick as many boxes as they wanted.
The first figure, on the right-hand side, shows how many
people worked in these different roles.
The most common role among respondents was
programming / development, at 21% of the sample.
However, the census received responses from people
working in a very wide range of roles, with seven different
roles receiving responses from more than 5% of the
sample. Some roles had small numbers, with noticeably
few responses from people working in composition /
music, and in distribution.
Who did the census?
1
A total of 3,208 people working in different roles in the UK games industry filled
out the census. This can be compared with a recent estimate
1 that UK games
companies directly employ 16,140 FTE roles, meaning survey responses here
consist of around 20% of the overall UK games workforce.
In designing the survey questionnaire, we aimed to
ask questions that would mean that the results could
be compared with other national data sources, while
making the process of answering the questions as
straightforward and non-invasive as possible.
Throughout this report, we’ll draw comparisons with
figures from the working-age population and from other
relevant groups, such as people working in different
occupations.
People who filled out the survey were recruited in two
ways. First, the survey was launched on 4th September
2019 at Ukie’s annual Members’ Day, with accompanying press coverage, publicity through social media, and so
on, and ran for 6 weeks allowing anyone who worked
in games to participate. However, we know that only
recruiting through open channels is likely to lead to
biased estimates. Because of this, we also recruited
through a representative sample of games organisations.
We explain the methodology in much more detail in the
“Methodological appendix” section of this report.
The questionnaire consisted of three main sections:
about the kinds of work that people do, about their
personal characteristics, and about their background.
In this section, we explain a little about people’s
responses to questions in the first section, about the
work that they do.
1: Ukie, Jan 2020. Ukie, Jan 2020. Think Global, Create Local. https://ukie.org.uk/regional-economic-report

Job role | 11
All job roles
Grouped job roles
These figures don’t sum to 100% because several people
were undertaking more than one role – for example,
someone might work both on project management and in
senior management.

To simplify some of the comparisons, and so that we’re
not potentially disclosing information about any respond-
ents, we’ve grouped some different job roles together. For
example, “Animation”, “Artist”, “Technical art”, and “UI /
UX”, have been grouped together under “Art”. This can be
seen in the above figure. These are the categories we’ll be
using throughout the rest of the report.

For full details of how we’ve grouped these jobs together,
please see the appendix.
Pr ogramming
Business operations
Sales / mar keting / communications
Art
Games / level desig n
Pr oject management
QAIT
Ot her
Wr itin g
Audi o
Localisatio n 21%
18 %
17 %
16 %
11%
11%
9%
3%
3%
2%
2%
2% Programming / development Designer (games / level)
Production / project management Artist (2D / 3D)QA
Senior management / leadership MarketingOther
UI / UX
Business development / commercial Data / analytics
IT / technical support / infastructure 21%
11%
11%
10%
9%
8%
6%
5%
4%
4%
3%
3%
Admin (general)
PR / communications HR
Finance
Writer / narrative design Technical art
Community management Animation
Audio / sound design LocalisationSalesLegal
3%
3%
3%
3%
2%
2%
2%
2%
2%
2%
2%
1%
Office management
Composer / music Distribution
1%
0.5%
0.5%

12 | Employment contract type
1.2 Employment contract type
We asked people what their relationship was with their
place of work – whether they were full-time, freelance,
on a fixed-term contract, and so on. This figure shows the
overall percentage of people with different kinds
of relationships.
By far the largest group of respondents were people
employed as full-time, permanent members of staff;
there were far smaller numbers of people working on
fixed-term contracts, who were part-time, who were
freelancers, and who were company owners or director.
We’ve grouped fixed-term and permanent part-
time workers together, and we’ve also grouped a few
categories together under the “Other” category. The 7% of people on fixed-term contracts is slightly
higher than the national average of 5%, while 2% of people
working part-time is significantly lower than the average
of all workers, which is 26%
2.

The fraction of people working in freelance roles, at 4%,
is below the 6% figure
3 for all sectors; however, some
people in the “Other” category might have been classified
as freelance through other methodological approaches.
It’s also likely that our recruitment method, which
targeted organisations, is likely to have left freelancers
underrepresented relative to employees.
2: Jenkins, K., 2017. Exploring the UK freelance workforce in 2016. The Association of Independent Professionals and the Self Employed (IPSE).
3: Office for National Statistics, 2019. Labour Force Survey table EMP01 SA: Full-time, part-time and temporary workers (seasonally adjusted).

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/datasets/fulltimeparttimeandtemporaryworkersseasonallyadjustedemp01sa
Employment contract type
Company owner / director
Employee: full-time, permanent
Employee: full-time, fixed term Employee: part-time
FreelancerOther 78%
6%
7%
4% 3%
2%

Supervision & seniority | 13
1.3 Supervision & seniority
We asked respondents whether they supervised anyone
in their work. We found that around 40% of people had
some level of responsibility for supervision, such as
line management, which is marginally higher than in the
working population more generally
4 and may suggest that
our data has more people in more senior roles than the
overall population of people working in games.
One thing that might explain this is people’s seniority.
We asked people which of the following categories best
described their position in their place of work. While
there is no set definition for each of these categories, as
someone might be “senior” in one organisation and “lead”
in another, we think it effectively captures some of the
differences in people’s seniority. Among people who selected “Director
/ CEO”, we’ve
distinguished between people who work in organisations
with between 1 and 24 people, and organisations with
25 or more people. Meanwhile, the “Other / na” category
largely consists of people working in freelance roles, or
who work in very small organisations.
The category with the largest number of people in
is “mid-level”, at around 30%, while around 15% have
classified themselves as junior. Around half the sample is
senior or above. This is consistent with the previous point
around the fraction of respondents who are responsible
for supervision.
4: Office for National Statistics, Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. (2019). Quarterly Labour Force Survey,
July – September, 2019. [data collection]. UK Data Service. SN: 8588, http://doi.org /10.5255/UKDA-SN-8588-1
Seniority of role
Dire ctor / C EO (25 + )
Dire ctor / C EO (1 – 24 )
Managerial Lead
Senior
Mid-leve l
Junior
Ot her / n a 3%
5%
12 %
13 %
18 %
29%
15 %
4%

Nearly a third of respondents
have worked in games for
ten years or more
14 | Time in the sector
1.4 Time in the sector
We asked people how long they’ve worked in the games
sector. The responses to this are summarised in the
above figure.

Nearly a third of respondents have worked in games
for ten years or more, while around 13% of people have
worked in games for up to a year. This is also consistent
with the fact that a large fraction of the sample is relatively senior, though it’s also worth noting that, in
other sectors, 31% of people having been working in
the same sector for a decade or more wouldn’t be
unusually high.
In this context, it’s something that’s noteworthy
because games is a relatively young industry.
Time worked in the sector
7%
Less than six months
6%
Between six months and a year
15%
Between three and five years
18%
Between one and three years
23%
Between five and ten years
31%
More than ten years

Organisation size | 15
1.5 Organisation size
We asked respondents how many people were based at
their organisations, which we were able to use to compare
with nationally representative data sources to identify
whether organisations of any given size seemed to be
under or over-represented.

While for some people the size of the organisation they
work for isn’t always clear – for example, someone
working in a small office that’s a part of a larger
organisation – this is helpful to get an overview of the
range of organisations represented among
our respondents. Compared with other Ukie data 5, people working in
smaller organisations, up to around 10 people, are under-
represented, while people working in larger organisations,
particularly those employing between 200 and 499
people, are over-represented.
However, analysis of the dataset using weighting to
adjust for these differences does not lead to any major
differences, and so the results presented throughout are
unweighted. Please see the methodological appendix for
full details.
Organisation size by employees
5: Ukie, Jan 2020. Think Global, Create Local. https://ukie.org.uk/regional-economic-report
1–2
3–9
10–24
25–49
50–99
100–199
200–499
500 or more
This question does not apply to me 3%
4%
9%
10%
13%
16%
26%
15%
2%

3%
7%
6%
9%
North East
0.5%
2% Scotland
1%  A country outside the UK, but in the EU
1%  Another country North West
Yorkshire & The Humber
5% East Midlands
19% South East 3% South West
0.5% Wales
Northern Ireland
6% East of England
39% Greater London
West Midlands
16 | Location
Locations 1.6
Location
We asked about the UK region where the organisation at
which people worked could be found. As with the ques –
tion about organisation size, for some people this won’t
have been totally clear, such as those people who work in
a small office in one region while the larger organisation is
based in another region.
Compared with other Ukie data
6, some areas such as
London are overrepresented, while other areas such as
Wales and Scotland are underrepresented.

As described in the previous section on organisation size,
analysis of other estimates with and without weighting
adjustments based on these two variables did not lead to
major differences, so results presented throughout are
based on unweighted data.

For respondents based outside of the UK, we assume that
they consider themselves part of the UK games industry
and therefore we include their responses in the data. It
should be noted that the number of these respondents is
so low that including them or not does not alter the results
in any meaningful way.
6: Ukie, Jan 2020. Think Global, Create Local. https://ukie.org.uk/regional-economic-report

Hours worked | 17
1 .7 Hours worked
Respondents were asked “How many hours per week
do you usually work? Please exclude meal breaks.” The
figure to the right shows the numbers of hours people
reported working.

This figure suggests that 73% of the people working in
games work between 33 and 40 hours per week, and
that fewer than 4% of people work for more than
50 hours a week.
This is at odds with previous international games sector
research on long working hours (sometimes known in
the industry as “crunch”, usually referring to periods of
intense working leading up to project deadlines) that sug –
gests that the percentage of people working long hours is
likely to be larger than this
7.
While the survey asked people to answer about the
number of hours people usually worked, some respond-
ents may have instead interpreted the question as being
about their contracted hours.
Usual hours worked
7: See for example Harvey, A., & Shepherd, T., 2017. When passion isn’t enough: gender, affect and credibility in digital games design. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 20(5),492–508.
8 hours or less
9–16 hours
17–24 hours
25–32 hours
33–40 hours 41–50 hours51–60 hours 60 hours + 2%
1%
1% 3%
73%
17%
0.5% 3%

18 | Who works in games?
As far as possible, we’ll also draw comparisons with
equivalent figures for the working-age population, to give
a sense of whether the numbers for games are high or low.

In addition, where possible, we’ll draw comparisons with
other parts of the cultural and creative industries. We
know from other research that jobs in the cultural and
creative industries have very different profiles from the
overall working-age population, and games are classified
as part of this sector. We also know that jobs in sectors with more of a technical
focus can also look very different from the working-age
population.

For this reason, we’re also drawing some comparisons
with other occupational groups, and, in some cases,
with some other organisations. It’s not possible to draw
comparisons for every single dimension discussed in the
previous section because the data often
aren’t available.
Who works in games?
2
This section summarises who works in games based on some of their
personal characteristics. We’ll follow this in the next few sections by
describing the different backgrounds of people working in games,
some more about the jobs they work in, and how the breakdown of
who works in games differs across different kinds of job roles,
different kinds of organisations, and so on.

Age | 19
2 .1 Age
We asked respondents how old they were at their last
birthday, in five-year categories (such as “26–30”). In
this figure, we’ve grouped the age groups of people 25
and younger together, and the age groups of people 51
and older, as some of these groups had relatively fewer
respondents.
When compared with people working in all jobs,
people working in games are much younger. This
is most striking with the categories 26–30 and
31–35, with 27% and 23% of the games workforce
respectively, compared with 11% in each of these
categories in the overall population
8. By comparison, just 3% of people working in games are
51 or older, compared with 29% of all people in work.
This is likely partly explained by the fact that games is a
relatively young industry, particularly at its current scale,
and so we would not expect large numbers of people
in their fifties and sixties with long careers in games,
since the numbers of people working in games in recent
decades were much smaller.
Age group
Two-thirds of the UK games
industry workforce is 35
or under
8: Office for National Statistics. Economic Activity by sex by age
(2011 Census, England and Wales): https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/dc6107ew
25 or younger
26–3031–35
36–40 41–45
46–50
51 or older 16%
27%
23%
15%
10%
6%
3% 16%
27%
23%
15%
10%
6%
3%

20 | Ethnic group
2.2 Ethnic group
We asked people the question “What is your ethnic
group?” and presented them with the same category as
the options presented in the Census that’s distributed
to people in England. 67% of people working in games
are White British, and 23% are White Other. This leaves
around 10% of people who are members of other ethnic
groups, the largest of which is Asian people at around 6%.

Together, this means that the fraction of people working
in games from non-White ethnic groups is in fact lower
than that of the working-age population
9. This is driven
by the White Other category, which is 23% among the games workforce, but closer to 6% among the working-
age population. The fraction of Black people working in
games, at 2%, is lower than the fraction of Black people in
the working-age population at 3.4%; the discrepancy for
Asian people is less pronounced, at 6% compared
with 8.1%.

The age category with the largest fraction of BAME
people is the 36–40 group, at 13%; most other categories
have similar fractions of BAME people, at around 10%,
except for the 51 and older category, where 5% of
people are BAME.
9: Office for National Statistics, 2018. Working-age population: Ethnicity facts and ffgures.
https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/uk-population-by-ethnicity/demographics/working-age-population/latest
Black, Asian and minority ethnic people make
up 10% of the UK games industry workforce
Ethnic group
White Other
Mixed / multiple
Black
Asian
Other
2%
23%
2%
1%
6%
White British 67%

Ethnic group | 21
10: DCMS, 2013. Classifying and measuring the creative industries.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/203296/Classifying_and_Measuring_the_Creative_Industries_Consultation_Paper_April_2013-final.pdf
11: Oakley, K., Laurison, D., O’Brien, D. and Friedman, S., 2017. Cultural capital: Arts graduates, spatial inequality,
and London’s impact on cultural labor markets. American Behavioral Scientist, 61(12), pp.1510-1531.
Ethnic group: % BAME workforce across a range of sectors
Games is more ethnically diverse that the general
UK workforce, cultural and creative industries,
and managerial / professional jobs in general
2.2.1 Ethnic group: comparing
with other industries
Here, we’re comparing the fraction of people working
who are BAME with the equivalent figures from each
of the other main sectors of the cultural and creative
industries
10. The comparison figures are derived from
the Labour Force Survey
11 . We’re also comparing all
jobs outside of cultural and creative industries (which
we’ve classified as “Non-CCI jobs”), and managerial and
professional jobs as a whole (which we’ve classified as
“NS-SEC I/II”).
While the overall fraction of BAME workers in games is
below the equivalent figure in the working-age population,
games are in fact slightly more ethnically diverse
than the workforce in general, of cultural and creative
industries in general, and of managerial jobs in general.
However, the games sector has a smaller fraction of
BAME workers than does the broader IT / software /
computer services sector, into which most games jobs
are classified: 10% compared with 14%. IT / software / computer services
Games
Non-CCI jobs
NS-SEC I/IIPublishing
CCIs overall
Architecture
Advertising / marketing DesignCrafts
Music / performing / visual art
Film / TV / video / radio / photography 14%
10%
10%
9%
8%
8%
7%
7%
7%
6%
5%
4%
Museums / galleries / libraries 3%

22 | Nationality
28% of the games industry workforce is
international, with 19% from the EU / EEA
12: Office for National Statistics, 2019. Population of the UK by country of birth and nationality.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/datasets/populationoftheunitedkingdombycountryofbirthandnationality
13: ScreenSkills, 2019. Annual ScreenSkills Assessment. https://www.screenskills.com/media/2853/2019-08-16-annual-screenskills-assessment.pdf
73%
UK
9%
Rest of world
19%
Other
EU / EEA
Nationality
2.3 Nationality
We asked people “What is your nationality?”,
with the options:
• UK / British national
• National of another European Union / European
Economic Area member state (not the UK)
• National of a country outside of the
European Union / European Economic Area
The categories were not mutually exclusive, so
respondents with multiple nationalities could tick
two, or all three categories.

73% of respondents had British nationality, while 19%
had nationality of another country in the EU or EEA,
and 9% had nationality of somewhere else.

The UK games industry has a significantly more
international workforce than the working-age
population
12, where the equivalent figures are closer to
7% from other countries in the EU / EEA, and 10% from
countries outside the EU / EEA. The UK games industry
also has a significantly more international workforce
than the rest of the screen industries, which consist of
around 88% UK nationals, and 6% each EU / EEA and rest
of world nationals
13.

In addition to this, we also asked respondents
“In which country did you spend the most time in your
childhood?”, from which 88 different countries
were represented.

Gender | 23
2.4 Gender
We asked respondents “What is your gender?”,
with four options:
• Male
• Female
• Non-binary
• Other (please specify)
70% of respondents said they were male, 28% female,
and 2% non-binary or other.

By comparison with the working-age population, the
games workforce is disproportionately male at 70%:
the working-age population is close to 50:50, while
the population in work is closer to 53% male
14. The proportion of people working in games who are
non-binary, or other genders, is significantly larger than
the estimated fraction in the adult population, at around
0.4%, although robust estimates are not available
15.
Gender at birth
Following the question about people’s genders, we asked
“Is this the same as the gender you were assigned at
birth?”. We’ve interpreted responses to this question
as whether people are trans or not.
Trans respondents are a mix of men, women, and
non-binary people. On this basis, we’ve identified that
3% of respondents are trans. This can be compared
with estimates from Stonewall
16 that the overall fraction
of trans adults in the UK is around 1%. Most of the
trans respondents to the survey are 30 or younger.
14: Office for National Statistics. Economic Activity by sex by age (2011 Census, England & Wales): https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/dc6107ew
15: All About Trans, 2014. Non-binary factsheet. https://www.allabouttrans.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/non-binary-gender-factsheet.pdf
16: Stonewall. The Truth About Trans. https://www.stonewall.org.uk/truth-about-trans#trans-people-britain
28%
Female
70%
Male
2%
Non-binary / other
Gender

24 | Gender
At 28%, the fraction of women working
in games is significantly below the overall
UK workforce, the creative and cultural
industries, and managerial / professional
jobs more generally
2.4.1 Gender: comparing with
other sectors
Here, we’re using the same categories as in section 2.2.1,
focusing on the proportions of women in each occupa –
tional group; we don’t have enough information about
non-binary people to draw comparisons.

To reiterate, “CCIs overall” refers to jobs across the
cultural and creative industries, and “NS-SEC I/II” refers
to managerial and professional jobs more generally.
Once again, this comparison data is drawn from the
Labour Force Survey. The fraction of women working in games is significantly
below that of managerial and professional jobs, and jobs
in general. However, it is only slightly smaller than the
fraction of women working in cultural and creative
industries in general, at 28% compared with 33%.

This can be partly explained by the very small fraction
of women working in IT / software / computer services,
at 14%: this occupational group forms the largest single
group within the CCI category more generally.
Museums / galleries / libraries
Publishing
Non-CCI jobs Design
NS-S EC I/II
Adve rtising / mark eting
Music / per forming / visual a rt
CCIs overal l
Ar chitectu re
Film / TV / video / radio / photography Games
Crafts 65%
53%
52%
48%
48%
46%
42%
33%
32 %
28%
28%
22%
IT / softwar e / computer service s
14%
Gender: % female workforce across a range of sectors

Gender and age | 25
2.4.2 Gender and age
Similarly, it is important to address the relationship
between age and gender. The below figure shows the
gender balance in the games industry at different
age groups.

Younger age groups have more women and non-binary
people: 62% of people 30 and under working in games are
men, compared with 70% overall. By contrast, close to
80% of those people working in games in the age groups
from 36 and above are men. This does not guarantee that, in time, the games industry
will become more evenly balanced between genders as
younger women and non-binary people already working
in games progress through the industry.

In the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathe –
matics) sector, the phenomenon whereby the fraction of
women decreases at increasingly senior career stages is
known as the “leaky pipeline”
17, though this issue is not
limited to STEM.
17. Pell, A.N., 1996. Fixing the leaky pipeline: Women scientists in academia. Journal of animal science, 74(11), pp.2843-2848.
Gender and age
Fe male
Male
Non-binary / other
0% 25%
51 or older (3%)
50% 75% 100%
21%
18%
77% 23%
78% 81%
46-50 (6%)
41–45 (10%)
36–40 (15%)
28%
34%
80% 20%
71%
62%
31–35 (23%)
26–30 (27%)
33%
62%
25 or younger (16%)
4%
1%
1%
0.5%
5%
0.5%

0% 25%
Non-binary / other (2%)
50% 75% 100%
58%
69%
14%
9%
76 %
28%
22%
Female (28%) Male (70%)
3%
21%
26 | Gender and ethnic group
2.4.3 Gender and ethnic group
It’s also important to consider the relationships between
these axes of diversity, recognising the salience of
intersectionality. The below figure shows the fractions of
people from different genders who are members of differ-
ent ethnic groups. In this case, we’ve grouped people from
different BAME categories together, as the numbers in
some cases are potentially so small as to be disclosive.
A larger fraction of women working in games (14%) are
BAME, compared with men (9%) and non-binary people
(3%). This is in contrast with the national trend, where
a larger proportion of the overall female workforce is
White
18. We will revisit this issue in a section 4, which
focuses on the different nationalities of people
working in games.
18: Oce for National Statistics, 2019. Ethnicity facts and gures: Employment.
https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/work-pay-and-benefits/employment/employment/latest#by-ethnicity-and-gender
Gender and ethnic group
White Britis h
BAME
White O ther

Sexuality | 27
2.5 Sexuality
We asked respondents “Which of the following best
describes how you think about yourself ?”, presenting
them with the following categories:
• Asexual
• Bisexual
• Heterosexual / straight
• Lesbian / gay
• Queer
• Other (please specify)
Other than the “Other” category, these were presented
in a random order.

Of those respondents who answered this question,
79% of respondents responded that they were straight,
compared with 5% who were lesbian / gay, 11% who were
bisexual, and 5% who selected another option.

A comparatively large fraction of respondents stated that
they were pansexual having selected “Other”, which is
why we include that category here.

The games industry therefore has a significantly larger
proportion of people whose sexuality is anything other
than heterosexual / straight than in the adult population,
estimated at between 93% and 97% depending on the
approach used
19.

The largest differences are with respect to bisexual
people, which is 11% in games compared with 0.7% in the
adult population, and people who are neither heterosexu-
al / straight, lesbian / gay, nor bisexual: this group is 5% of
people working in games, compared with 0.6% in the
adult population. Less reliable data exists around how
many queer, pansexual, and asexual people there are
in the UK population, which is why we don’t draw the
comparison here.
19: Office for National Statistics, 2017. Sexual orientation, UK: 2017. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/sexuality/bulletins/sexualidentityuk/2017
Sexuality
21% of the games industry workforce is LGBTQ+,
a significantly higher proportion than in national
population estimates, which range between 3-7%
Heterosexual / straight
Lesbian / gay
Pansexual Queer
Other
5%
79%
1%
2%
Bisexual 11%
Asexual 1%
0.5%

28 | Sexuality and gender
2.5.1 Sexuality and gender
Here, we investigate whether there are differences in
the sexualities of different genders. In this case, we have
grouped together some sexualities due to small numbers
and the potential of disclosure.
Men are the most likely group to be heterosexual/straight
at 86%, compared with 65% of women and 5% of
non-binary people. Similar fractions of men and women are lesbian/gay, at
around 5% each, but women are particularly likely to be
bisexual, at 22% compared with 6% of men.

Women are also particularly likely to be neither
heterosexual/straight, lesbian/gay, nor bisexual, at 8%.
That said, the fraction of men who are not heterosexual/
straight is still significantly greater than the
national average.
Sexuality and gender
Bise xual
Lesbian / ga y
Heterose xual / straight
Ot her
0% 25%
Non-binary / other (2%)
50% 75% 100%
12%  31% 5% 51%
Female (28%) 22%
65% 8%
Male (70%) 5%
4%
3%
86% 6%

100%
75%
30 or younger
Female
50%
25%
0%
31 – 35 36 – 40 41 – 4546 – 5051 or older
96% 94 % 86%
13.5% 23%
76 %
51%53%
60%
45% 44% 37%
42% 45%43%
57%58%
52%
Male
Female Male FemaleMale FemaleMale FemaleMale FemaleMale
0.5% 0.5%
0.5%
1% 1%
3% 2%
5%
43%50%
29%35%
2%5%
10%
4%3%
4%
1% 3%
1%
1% 1%4% 3% 7%
5%
Caring responsibilities | 29
2.6
Caring responsibilities
We asked respondents “Do you have any caring
responsibilities outside work?”. The possible
answers were:
• Yes – I have childcare responsibilities
• Yes – I have carer responsibilities
• Yes – I have both childcare and carer responsibilities
• No Overall, 23% of respondents have childcare
responsibilities and 3% of respondents have carer
responsibilities, with 1% of respondents having both.
This compares with around 38% of people in work who
live with dependent children
20. This is a major difference,
which might be at least partly explained through the
age distribution of people working in games, as it skews
younger than the overall population of people in work.

In order to unpack this, we’ve explored people’s caring
responsibilities by both age group and gender. Because
some of these categories are very small, we’ve omitted
non-binary people, and we’ve grouped people under 30 together. This shows that the small fractions of people
with caring responsibilities, particularly childcare
responsibilities, can be partly explained by the age
distribution of people working in games. Around half of
the people working in games who are aged between 36
and 50 have childcare responsibilities, while a very small
fraction of people aged 30 or younger have any caring
responsibilities (around 5%).

There are also relatively small differences between men
and women in terms of caring responsibilities, except
that men aged 31–35 are nearly twice as likely to have
childcare responsibilities as are women.
None
Both
Childcare
Care r
20: O9ce for National Statistics, 2019.  Families and the labour market, England: main dataset using the Labour Force Survey and Annual Population Survey.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/datasets/familiesandthelabourmarketenglandlfsandapsdatasets
Caring responsibilities, age and gender
Caring responsibilities
22% Childcare
2% Care r
1% Both

30 | Long-term conditions
2 .7 Long-term conditions
Following extensive discussion with a range of people in
games, the questions about long-term conditions were
very detailed.

There were three batches of questions, all starting with
“Do you have any of the following conditions which have
lasted, or are expected to last, at least 12 months?”.
The first batch focused on neurodiversity, the second on
mental health, and the third on chronic physical health
conditions. Here, we’ve grouped chronic physical health
conditions together, as some categories had so few
responses that they were potentially disclosive. We’ve also distinguished between people who reported
both anxiety and depression, and people who reported
just one. In this first figure, we’ll show the rates of people
reporting different long-term health conditions; we’ll then
show the figures for different neurodivergent conditions.
21% of respondents disclosed that they live with a
chronic physical health condition, compared with
around 13% in the working-age population
21.
31% of respondents reported anxiety or depression
(or both), compared to a national average of 17%.
15% of respondents disclosed both anxiety and
depression, compared with 8% nationally
22; 10%
disclosed that they had anxiety (but not depression),
compared with 6% nationally, and 6% disclosed that
they had depression (but not anxiety), compared with
3% nationally. We’ll explore these figures in more detail
in a subsequent section.
Rates of reported PTSD are slightly lower than in the
general population (2%,compared with 4% in the gener-
al population), while rates of reported OCD are similar
to those in the general population.
31% of games industry workers reported
anxiety or depression, or both
21: Office for Disability Issues, 2011. Life Opportunities Survey wave one results.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/180891/los_wave_one_200911.pdf
22: Mind, 2017. Mental health facts and statistics.
https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/statistics-and-facts-about-mental-health/how-common-are-mental-health-problems/
Long-term conditions

Chronic health condition
Both anxiety and dep ression
Anxiet y
Depr ession
PT SD
OC D 21%
15 %
10 %
6%
2%
2%

Neurodiversity | 31
11% of respondents reported
a neurodivergent condition
2.8 Neurodiversity
These categories are not mutually exclusive, with some
respondents having two, three, or all four conditions;
overall, 11% of respondents are neurodivergent. These
percentages are broadly consistent with or lower than
those estimated in the general population, with ACAS
estimating
23 that 4% of the adult population has ADHD,
with the numbers for dyslexia 10%, dyspraxia 5%, and
autism 1-2%.

However, it is particularly worth drawing attention to the
fact that it is estimated
24 that just 16% of autistic adults
are in full-time work, while around 56% of people in the
overall adult population are
25. This suggests that the
rates of autistic adults working in games is in fact
between three and four times the rate in other
employment sectors.
23: ACAS, 2016. Neurodiversity in the workplace. https://www.acas.org.uk/neurodiversity
24: National Autistic Society, 2016. Government must tackle the autism employment gap: National Autistic Society
https://www.autism.org.uk/get-involved/media-centre/news/2016-10-27-employment-gap.aspx
25: Office for National Statistics, 2019. Employment in the UK.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/employmentintheuk/december2019
Long-term conditions
Neurodiversity

6% Dysl exia
3% ADHD
2% Autism
2% Dysp raxia

32 | Social background
26: Civil Service Diversity & Inclusion, 2018. Measuring Socio-economic Background in your Workforce: recommended measures for use by employers.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/768371/Measuring_Socio-economic_Background_in_your_Workforce__recommended_measures_for_use_by_employers.pdf

27: Friedman, S., Laurison, D., & Macmillan, L., 2017. Social Mobility, the Class Pay Gap and Intergenerational Worklessness: New Insights from The Labour Force Survey.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/596945/The_class_pay_gap_and_intergenerational_worklessness.pdf
2.9 Social background
The key measure we’ve used for people’s social
backgrounds is a question abou