ABSTRACT
The contemporary economy is widely cited to be a knowledge-based economy, although
Knell and Oakley (2007, p. 2, added emphasis) note that the “creative and cultural sectors
are an apex part of the knowledge economy”. In many respects, the “creative industries”
are privy to the same drivers as the knowledge economy, and given their collective impor-
tance have come to be regarded as an integral engine of economic growth and competitive-
ness. Indeed, the European Commission has suggested that the cultural and creative
industries contribute 2.6% to EU GDP and employ in the region of 5 million workers
(European Commission, 2010). Furthermore, in the UK (the geographical focus of this
paper), the Department for Culture Media and Sport’s (DCMS) most recent economic indi-
cators show the creative industries contributed a not insignificant 5.6% of the UK’s gross
value added in 2008 and comprised 4.1% of all goods and services exported (DCMS,
2010)—higher than the estimated figures for Europe as a whole. Moreover, the importance
of the creative industries to the British economy has also been explicitly identified in
recent reports on Creative Britain (2010) and Digital Britain (2010). These reports
embody the legacy of New Labour’s strategy to forge a sustainable and world-leading
creative industries landscape, and even during times of fiscal austerity and under a new
coalition government, the creative industries remain an important growth area in rebalan-
cing the economy. In realizing the creative industries’ position at an apex of the knowledge
economy this paper considers the importance of one of the most under-researched, yet
increasingly populous groups of workers in the sector-freelancers. And by providing
empirical material that goes beyond a mere overview of the number of freelancers to
engage with how they interact with commissioning firms in a project-based environment,
this paper seeks to advance the study of freelancers across the social sciences.
