Kirsty Warner and Hussein Kassim explore the impact of Brexit on the UK creative industries.

Since the 2016 referendum, Brexit debates have centred on trade, fishing, immigration, and agriculture, with the creative industries largely overlooked. Yet for cultural organisation, from musicians to theatre companies, Brexit has brought shared challenges: reduced funding, restricted movement of people and objects, and weakened access to European networks. With impacts varying across sectors and institutions, no single solution fits all. And in the absence of clear government guidance, the sector has been left to navigate these complexities alone.

The UK’s creative industries encompass nine sub-sectors, including museums, advertising and marketing, music, and video gaming. Together, they are a powerhouse of the UK economy, generating over £124 billion in gross value added (GVA) in 2023 and employing 2.4 million people. Despite their diversity and varying degrees of reliance on European markets, there have been common challenges. This blog focuses on three sub-sectors – music, media and preforming arts – to illustrate the broader impact.

For the UK’s music industry, membership of the single market and customs union allowed UK bands to tour the EU freely – no visas, customs checks, or merchandise taxes. UK membership after 1973 had removed the obstacles and work permit requirements encountered, for example, by the Beatles. Post-Brexit, visa costs, customs paperwork for instruments, and the 90-day limit on working in the EU have made touring financially and logistically complex – especially for young musicians.

87% of musicians report financial losses, with average EU tour earnings down 45%. For 59% of UK musicians, touring in the EU is no longer viable. This is not just a blow to income; it’s a cultural and soft power loss. Without European access and exposure, young UK artists are less visible abroad and miss out on crucial early touring experience, essential to making their name.

Mobility restrictions have also hit the media sector, particularly film, TV, and animation. The biggest loss has been access to EU funding, especially Creative Europe, which awarded €89.5 million to 376 UK organisations between 2014 and 2018 and supported the distribution of 190 UK films. Co-commissioning, where several partners join together to make a big enough pool to fund projects, is no longer available to British film-makers, and domestic replacements like the UK Global Screen Fund are seen as inadequate. In 2019, UK projects averaged €281,000 in EU support, compared to just £5,000 per project from the UK Arts Councils’ replacement fund. With Creative Europe’s budget rising to €2.44 billion, Brexit has cost the UK creative sector an estimated €184 million.

It’s not just the money. For performing arts, EU-funded programs foster international networks, providing organisations access to new opportunities, specialist expertise, and export markets. A senior festival director in the UK cultural sector described how the networking opportunities from Creative Europe have been fundamental for touring work and placing British work internationally. But post-Brexit, ‘we no longer have the opportunity to take European work, or to help British artists find their space in Europe’.

These EU networks also disseminate culture across national boundaries by encouraging collaboration and artistic exchange. Yet now, post-Brexit, this exchange has been limited, with the number of European acts performing in British festivals decreasing by 40% in 2023 and the number of English-language theatre productions in Europe also in decline.

Music, media and performing arts are just three sub-sectors. Museums and galleries, advertising, publishing, design, fashion, architecture, gaming, and digital services each face obstacles post-Brexit.  Some relate to copyright and intellectual property, some to talent pipelines, and others to post-Brexit tariffs, VAT payments and complex paperwork. Although some creatives have found workarounds, others have left the sector entirely. It is not only the scale of the disruption across the creative industries, but its complexity and uneven impact that are challenging.

While the plight of music and touring artists has attracted public attention, the challenges faced by other sectors, like museums, have remained far less visible. As a result, policy proposals have been directed towards the needs of the most vocal, leaving gaps in support for others.

UK government proposals to address such challenges include the Visa Waiver Scheme for Touring Artists (VWSTA), and reciprocal cultural programs, such as touring visa waivers and youth mobility schemes. However, these depend on UK–EU cooperation, where important differences remain. On touring musicians, it is not only that the Johnson government rejected the EU’s offer of a waiver; but that the greater strength of the UK music industry also reduces the EU’s incentive to grant concessions without broader gains. As a result, the EU is likely to seek a package approach in which any cultural concessions are offset by benefits elsewhere.

Touring issues have been raised repeatedly by the UK in EU–UK Partnership Council meetings, where the EU has maintained that restrictions stem from the UK’s decision to leave. Youth mobility, meanwhile, has not featured in these discussions but is now on the formal negotiation agenda following the May 2025 ‘common understanding’. While the EU has consistently favoured a bloc-wide agreement, the UK, having previously pursued bilateral arrangements, has now signalled willingness to engage at the EU level. Concrete negotiations are expected to begin this autumn, though progress is likely to be difficult.

Yet without resetting UK–EU cultural exchange around mobility and collaboration, young people will continue to be excluded from training, exchange, and international opportunities.

At the same time, the UK government could do more. Missing still is a clear, UK-led strategy to tackle challenges within its own control: investing in skills, expanding domestic funding, and providing sector-specific guidance to help creative industries adapt. The last Cultural White Paper was produced in 2016, and even recent policy documents such as Sunak’s Creative Industries sector vision, failed to outline a post-Brexit cultural strategy. Without a clear vision for culture in a post-Brexit context, the UK risks leaving large parts of its creative sector without the support they need to survive, still less thrive.

By Kirsty Warner, Assistant Professor at the University of Warwick and Hussein Kassim, Professor at the University of Warwick and Senior Fellow at UK in a Changing Europe.