From Playbook to Practice: Next Steps for the UK’s Creative Industries and Soft Power Strategy

In 2024, University of the Arts London (UAL) published Keeping the UK’s creative industries globally competitive: a playbook to protect our future prosperity and security. Drawing on research with creative businesses and sector leaders, the Playbook set out how changes to foreign, trade and migration policy could strengthen the UK’s creative industries and better harness their contribution to the country’s prosperity, security and soft power.

Since its publication, several recommendations have been taken forward, including the creation of a Soft Power Council and a Soft Power Hub within the Foreign Office, alongside greater investment in the BBC World Service, the British Council and the Global Screen Fund.

But progress remains fragile. In this new paper, in partnership with UAL, Eliza Easton examines what has changed, where important barriers persist, and what government must do next to turn growing political ambition into lasting impact.