Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make an estimate of the (a) number of vacancies and (b) level of skill shortages in (i) broadcast and print media, (ii) theatres, (iii) graphic design, (iv) tourism and (v) sport and leisure.

While DCMS does not have any estimates on the number of vacancies, the Department has published Experimental Official Statistics for skills shortages (%) in DCMS sectors and sub-sectors. These are for the year 2019, using data from the Employer Skills Survey, carried out by the Department for Education that covers England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The ESS is a biennial survey, which was delayed by a further year during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, with 2022-23 data expected to be published later this year (also currently scheduled to include Scotland).

Skills shortage vacancies are defined as vacancies unfilled because applicants did not have the necessary skills. Two measures for skills shortages are published:

• Percentage of vacancies that are unfilled due to skills shortages

• Percentage of businesses with at least one skills shortage vacancy

The “Percentage of businesses with at least one skills shortage vacancy” estimates are impacted by the fact that some businesses will not have had a vacancy. Therefore the “% of businesses with at least one vacancy” figure was also published to help provide context.

Table 1 - Skills shortages in selected sectors. Estimates are not available directly measuring the areas requested. The sectors presented here have been provided as the closest to the requested sectors, for which DCMS have skills shortages data.

Source: DCMS Sectors Skills Shortages and Skills Gaps: 2019