Britain’s creative industries have long been the envy of the world, and now, a bold new government-backed programme is set to ensure they stay that way.
Innovate UK has unveiled Next Wave, a fresh growth initiative designed to help the nation’s most ambitious “createch” businesses, those working at the cutting edge of creativity and technology, scale up, attract investment, and compete confidently on the world stage.
A Vote of Confidence in British Ingenuity
The scheme builds on the success of its £10 million pilot, Breakthrough Wave 1, which drew an astonishing 700 applications from creative technology firms across every corner of the UK. That response, officials say, is proof of the sheer depth of talent and ambition within Britain’s createch sector.
Buoyed by this momentum, Innovate UK will roll out further Next Wave opportunities in 2027, targeting four frontier industries where British creativity has always shone: film and TV, video games, music and the performing and visual arts, and advertising and marketing.
The ambition is striking. By 2035, Next Wave aims to help forge at least ten future “centaur” companies and two future unicorns, while unlocking more than £300 million in private investment, a clear signal that Britain intends to lead, not follow, in the industries of tomorrow.
Dr Joanna Choukeir, Deputy Director for Creative Industries at Innovate UK, put it plainly, saying the country’s extraordinary creative talent, technical expertise, and research infrastructure make it the natural home for this new generation of businesses, and that the goal is nothing less than making Britain the number one destination for creative enterprise to start, grow, and thrive.
Government and Industry, Working Together
Alongside this investment comes the launch of the Creative Trade Forum, a new alliance between government and industry designed to help British creative firms boost exports, draw in investment, and hold their own against international competition. Reporting to the Creative Industries Council, the forum unites some of the country’s most influential institutions and companies, including the British Film Institute, the British Council, UKRI, BBC Studios, WPP, and YouTube.
Its brief is straightforward: give ministers a clearer picture of the challenges facing the sector, knock down barriers to growth, champion British exports, and forge stronger commercial ties abroad.
Tom Fiddian, Head of Creative Industries at Innovate UK, welcomed the move, noting that Britain’s creative industries already generate £145 billion a year in economic value and attract more creative foreign direct investment than almost any other nation on earth. The task now, he explained, is to convert that global appetite into homegrown growth, helping British firms expand while keeping more of their intellectual property, ownership, and long-term value on these shores.
Francesa Hegyi, Co-Chair of the Creative Trade Forum and Chief Executive of the Edinburgh International Festival, pointed to the wider context, describing the government’s Modern Industrial Strategy, launched in June 2025, as a clear blueprint for economic growth with creative industries at its heart. Years of groundwork, she said, are now translating into real, tangible action.
A Sector Built for the Future
Creative industries sit among the six priority sectors named in Innovate UK’s prospectus, and feature prominently in UKRI’s research and development strategy for the creative and cultural economy, a reflection of just how central this sector has become to Britain’s economic story.
Next Wave forms part of a broader push to help high-potential British businesses turn breakthrough ideas into commercially successful, globally competitive products and services, strengthening the pipeline of world-class createch companies and, in turn, driving exports and private investment even further.
It all feeds into a wider national ambition, doubling business investment in the creative industries by 2035, and cementing Britain’s place as a true global leader in the industries that will define the decades ahead.
