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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of potential impact of the UK Games Fund on (a) employment, (b) investment, (c) studio formation and (d) IP development over the next 12 months.

DCMS commissioned an independent evaluation of the UK Games Fund (UKGF) by Alma Economics which was published on 18th July 2025. This evaluation assessed the fund’s impact between April 2022 and March 2025, as well as previous iterations of the programme since 2015.

The evaluation found that:

1. UKGF was estimated to contribute around 430 additional FTE jobs in the video games sector during the three years evaluated.

2. UKGF-funded companies surveyed leveraged an additional £18.2m in funding, which exceeds the total £13m invested into the fund.

3. On IP development, 74% of beneficiaries agreed or strongly agreed that their prototype or video game would not have been completed without UKGF support, which was associated with an eight-percentage-point increase in the probability of beneficiaries having developed a prototype or video game after one year of funding, compared to those who did not receive UKGF support.

The evaluation did not measure the fund’s impact on studio formation but, in response to interviews, some applicants commented that UKGF was well-targeted to smaller studios early in the development process, noting it as a critical funding source for games studios that had not yet made a game in full.

As part of the recently published Creative Industries Sector Plan, the government announced the £30 million Games Growth Package, including an expansion of the UKGF over the next three years. While we do not have an assessment of the fund’s impact over the next 12 months, it is anticipated that the programme will achieve greater impact with its increased funding.