The labour market can be defined as the overview of good and service sales and the overall status of your chosen industry. It may also cover job roles and skills within the pipeline, average salaries for people in the industry, workstyles, and inclusion and diversity within the industry.
In the games industry there are a variety of job types, work styles and salaries available to people hoping to get into this area of work. Since the Covid Pandemic, many employers have explored the possibility for at home and hybrid jobs along with studio based jobs to open positions up to a wider range of people. In a study done by Williams (2024) for the UK games survey, data was gathered that showed that 32% of job roles are now compatible with all working dynamics, offering the opportunity to work from home, while 66% of jobs in the games industry are studio based, having more than a quarter of jobs offer this opportunity, it means that working from home or operating on a hybrid workstyle is definitely something you could do in your chosen field.
The top 3 most popular job roles within the games industry fall under 3 main categories, these being (Taylor 2022) Development jobs with a percentage of people in the field making up 19%, Project management with an 11% of people in the games industry falling under this field, and Artist roles making up 10% of the industry. These job roles include individuals working both in house and freelance, though it is to note that only 3% of these roles are freelance workers whilst the other 82% is permanent in house presence (Taylor 2022). This shows that there is a higher number of studio based workers in the games industry as opposed to those working freelance. Leading on from this we can look at roughly how much each person in these top 3 roles might earn yearly. A games developer on average can earn anywhere from £19,000 - £75,000 per year depending on their seniority in their role(Glassdoor 2024) whereas a games artist may be looking at anything from £26,000 - £33,000 per year also dependant on their seniority in their position(Glassdoor 2024). Narrowing this down to a role i myself would like to do, i found that Concept artists fall somewhere in the middle of these two roles with £17,000- £75,000 per year, or if i decided to go Freelance, i can look at an average of $14 per hour according to data gathered by Prospects (2024).
The uk is slowly growing in terms of its gaming sector, currently falling at 6th in the world for videogames, behind germany and south korea (NewZoo 2024). Narrowing our view down just to Europe alone however, the UK is currently the leading country for games as of 2024 being “currently valued at over £7 billion.
"(Equity 2024) though this has been speculated to grow yearly. This is further evidenced by data collected by Statista (2024) which predicts the games revenue to increase by 9.27% yearly, with videogames becoming a more popular purchase especially since the Lockdowns of 2020. Videogames in general have become more popular in the UK since this event most likely due to people spending more time indoors and having more money saved that they might have spent on going out and about, according to a study in 2024 (Clement) 73% of all UK gamers have spent money on videogames, either on downloads, in game purchases or subscriptions, this is something that will help boost the overall video gaming sector and industry as a whole.
However, it is important to note one significant occurrence that happened shortly after the lockdowns and in the subsequent years. Many companies have had to perform mass layoffs of employees for a great many reasons, According to Williams(2024), there were almost 3,000 layoffs of employees within the games industry in just December 2023 alone, though it has seemed that this number has decreased over the following months. Some reasons behind this may be due to the inflation of the economy and the UK and global cost of living crisis. (Dring 2024) Dring, an author on the site Eurogamer however suggested that many of these workers who lost their jobs from the larger corporations, have gone on to form their own smaller studios. Another hypothesis for the mass layoffs may have been something to do with the stock market and the protocol to preserve the larger business at the cost of employees jobs, with rising prices games studios have to cut workers in able to help their company stay afloat. (Hornshaw 2024) Hornshaw also made a statement that the 2020 pandemic gave a lot of money back to the industry " we saw just a mass spike in consumption", "And each company was hiring at rates that were unprecedented as well.", while having generated a large income due to consumption is good they might have hired too many people to meet this spike in demand to continue to support when the spike in consumption died down. It does seem that these layoffs were very much a product of a bad and unforeseen circumstance, and had nothing to do with the unpopularity of games within the UK, rather the opposite in some cases where the demand was so high that they could not predict how to sustain the staff they had.
Using the (UKIE 2024) UK games map, I was able to find a list of Games studios in my local area : https://map.gamesmap.uk/#viewport=%7B%22zoom%22%3A5%2C%22latitude%22%3A54.86%2C%22longitude%22%3A-4.102%2C%22bearing%22%3A0%2C%22pitch%22%3A0%7D
Lava games
Dambuster
Crytek
Mojo soft
Hitbox entertainment
Eggbox interactive
Axial Studio
P2 Digital
Drealm Media - Retford
"Drealm Media is a Games Company based in North Nottinghamshire. They are a Private limited company, trading for 3 years, 2 months and 21 days from 25 Aug 2021."
Beefjack - Doncaster
Pixel Bomb games - Doncaster
Lone wolf games - Sheffield
Interactive rooster - Sheffield
Ugly duck games - Sheffield
chronobyte interactive - Sheffield
Looking at this there are a lot more jobs near my area than I thought, this is quite interesting to know and gives me hope that I don't have to travel a million miles a way to find a job.This map is incredibly useful to see where the main hubs for gaming are in the UK and my relation to them, Nottingham had quite a few results for studios which is very helpful to know that, like my previous point, i dont have to travel too far to be able to have hopes of entering this industry.
The UK Games Industry Census(Taylor 2022) is a cohesive and exhaustive list of important data and information to do with the UK games industry and market as a whole. It covers a range of topics, of which i specifically looked into the results for diversity in the games industry. I looked at the gender, race and sexuality divide and social/educational divide. On top of this, i also gathered some data on a topic more specific to our project, that being mental health and neurodivergence in the gaming sector, specifically those who struggle with anxiety and depression. Below is the data i gathered from the census that covers these topics -
class and diversity issues. (Taylor 2022)
66% white british
11% other ethnic groups
71% UK Nationals (Taylor 2022)
20% EU Nationals
9% from elsewhere
Gender (Taylor 2022)
30% female
67% male
3% non binary
76% heterosexual (Taylor 2022)
12% bisexual
12% other sexualities
High number of people in the games industry who are neurodivergent (Taylor 2022)
Social background - (Taylor 2022)
61% manager position
16% intermediate
13% in a routine
54% have a bachelors degree (Taylor 2022)
27% games specific degree
Mental health struggles- (Taylor 2022)
30% females struggle with anxiety
27% males struggle with anxiety
67% nonbinary people struggle with anxiety
27% females struggle with anxiety
20% males struggle with anxiety
57% nonbinary people struggle with anxiety
Transgender people in the industry 65% struggle with anxiety (Taylor 2022)
Transgender people in the industry 57% struggle with Depression
Cisgender people in the industry 33% struggle with anxiety
Cisgender people in the industry 22% struggle with Depression
Online Journals -
Taylor, M., 2022. UK Games Industry Census [online]. Ukie. Available at: file:///C:/Users/c1202302/Downloads/Ukie%20Diversity%20Census%20Report%202022.pdf [Accessed 15th November 2024].
Williams, B. 2024. Uk Games Jobs Summary January 2024 [Online]. Games Jobs Live. Available at: https://gamesjobs.live/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Games-Jobs-Live-UK-Report-January-2024-Summary.pdf [Accessed 15th November 2024].
Websites -
Clement, J. 2024. Videogaming in the United Kingdom (UK) - Statistics & Facts [Online]. Statista. Available at: https://www.statista.com/topics/8238/video-gaming-in-the-united-kingdom/ [Accessed 15th November 2024].
Dring, C. 2024. What is going on with layoffs in the video games industry? [Online]. Eurogamer. Available at: https://www.eurogamer.net/what-is-going-on-with-the-video-games-industry#:~:text=Sales%20are%20falling%2C%20costs%20are,good%20at%20and%20cutting%20projects. [Accessed 15th November 2024].
Equity, 2024. About the games industry [Online]. Equity. Available at:https://www.equity.org.uk/advice-and-support/sector-specific-advice/video-games/working-as-a-video-game-performer/about-the-games-industry#:~:text=The%20UK%20video%20games%20sector,total%20entertainment%20revenues%20in%202022. [Accessed 15th November 2024].
Glassdoor, 2024. Game Artists Salaries in United Kingdom [Online]. Glassdoor. Available at:https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salaries/game-artist-salary-SRCH_KO0,11.htm [Accessed 15th November 2024].
Hornshaw, P. 2024. Video Game Industry Layoffs Are Worse Than Ever. How Did We Get Here? [Online]. Gamespot. Available at: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/video-game-industry-layoffs-are-worse-than-ever-how-did-we-get-here/1100-6521799/ [Accessed 15th November 2024].
NewZoo, 2024. Top countries and markets by video game revenues [Online]. NewZoo. Available at: https://newzoo.com/resources/rankings/top-10-countries-by-game-revenues [Accessed 15th November 2024].
Prospects, 2024. Concept artist [Online]. Prospects. Available at: https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/concept-artist#:~:text=Starting%20salaries%20for%20entry%2Dlevel,14%20per%20hour%20on%20average. [Accessed 15th November 2024].
Statista, 2024. Video Games - United Kingdom [Online]. Statista. Available at: https://www.statista.com/outlook/dmo/digital-media/video-games/united-kingdom#:~:text=In%202024%2C%20the%20projected%20revenue,US%2411.68bn%20by%202027. [Accessed 15th November 2024].
UKIE,2024. Uk Games Map [Online]. Ukie. Available at : https://map.gamesmap.uk/#viewport=%7B%22zoom%22%3A5%2C%22latitude%22%3A54.86%2C%22longitude%22%3A-4.102%2C%22bearing%22%3A0%2C%22pitch%22%3A0%7D [Accessed 15th November 2024].
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