UKIE has released its first-ever UK Games Industry Census yesterday after running an analysis of diversity in the UK games workforce. The report was administered by the University of Sheffield and supported by UKIE and saw over 3200 anonymous responses from people working in the games industry across the UK. UKIE has also launched an industry-wide diversity pledge #RaiseTheGame.
The questions from the report asked industry workers what they do, personal characteristics, and their backgrounds. The answers were then compared against figures from other sectors and national datasets as a way to see where the industry is doing well and where challenges lie.
The report shows that two-thirds of the workforce is aged 35 or under and that only 10% of people are from Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds. The latter figure is slightly higher than the national working population but the representation of BAME backgrounds is less representative in more senior roles.
28% of the people working in the industry are female, with 2% being non-binary. That means a large 70% of people in the industry are males. Additionally, female representation is “significantly under the national average, under the average of the overall creative industries and lower in senior roles.” LGBTQ+ workers in the games industry also come to 21% which is high when national data indicates that LGBTQ+ people make up between 3-7% of the UK population.
The UK games industry is highly international with 28% having non-UK nationalities. This is in comparison to 17% in the working-age population. 19% of workers are from the EU/EEA with 9% from the rest of the world.
There are three pledge pillars:
The #RaisetheGame pledge is currently supported by a number of partnered companies, such as Ubisoft, Sony Interactive Entertainment nDreams and more. This also includes its five founding partners EA, Facebook, Jagex, King, and Microsoft. They’ll be required to provide information on how they’ve worked to stick to the above pillars on an annual basis.
The census is also planned to take place every 2 years to keep track on changes in the industry.The full report can be viewed herewhich also touches on other factors such as detailing that “31% of respondents reported that they live with anxiety, depression or both” and that 3.5% have reported they work 51 hours per week or more while “Three-quarters of all respondents reported working a standard full-time working week of between 33-40 hours.”
