Those industries that focus on creating and exploiting intellectual property; for example, fashion designs, computer games, or providing creative services for business, such as advertising (also called the creative economy).

In 1998, the cultural industries employed 5% of the total UK workforce at the time, making up 4% of UK GDP—a larger share than for any traditional manufacturing industry (UK Department of Media, Culture and Sport, Creative Industries Mapping Document). Peck (2005) Int. J. Urb. & Reg. Res. 29, 4 argues that ‘an unobserved creative milieu, that attracts artists, increases local economic dynamism’, while Wojan et al. (2007) J. Econ. Geog. 7, 6 feel that ‘creative milieu’ remains an amorphous construct.