Calls to introduce new Digital Creativity GCSE

A coalition of over 60 leading organisations from the UK’s creative and digital industries are calling on the government to introduce a new Digital Creativity GCSE – a forward-looking qualification designed to equip young people with the skills required for jobs of the future.

The call is led by Ukie -  the trade body for the UK games and interactive entertainment industry. 

The creative industries contribute approximately £124–£126 billion to the economy and employ around 2.4 million people, with the video games sector alone generating nearly £8 billion in consumer spending in recent years.

Despite this growth, many school students finish Key Stage 4 without the digital, creative, and problem-solving skills needed by employers, particularly in fast-moving industries. As Ukie and others have noted, digital education remains inconsistent across schools.

There is a significant mismatch between what is taught in many computing or computer science GCSEs (often deeply technical and coding-focused) and the broader creative digital skills that sectors demand: design, collaboration, audio/visual production, ethical/AI literacies, user experience, computational thinking, creative design and innovation.

Gender disparities persist: only about 20% of Computer Science GCSE candidates are female. A new, more inclusive digital creativity pathway could help close this gap.

The new GCSE being called for will sit alongside a reformed Computer Science GCSE, giving students real choice at Key Stage 4 between a more technically-oriented computing route and a creatively oriented digital arts/technology route.

It would focus on hands-on, applied skills: visual design, audio production, game or app prototyping, ethical computing, creative problem solving, digital story-telling, user interface/user experience, collaboration and iteration.

The coalition wants the new GCSE to be inclusive, helping schools across different regions to have the resources, teacher training, and infrastructure needed so that opportunity is not tied to postcode.