UK at risk of ‘serious loss of writing talent’, union warns

Rising energy and food costs are severely impacting the viability of writing as a career, a new survey has found.

The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (WGGB) surveyed more than 250 writers, among whom 55% cited the cost of living as “impacting on their ability to sustain a writing career, severely impacting livelihoods and the cultural industries which depend upon their skills”.

Writers across TV, film, theatre, audio, books and videogames responded to the survey, with 67% stating that they had to rely on savings in order to manage day-to-day expenditure and 37% saying they were forced to rely on their partners’ earnings.

More than 70% of those surveyed had earned £18,000 or less for their writing work in the last financial year.

Over 80% described themselves as freelance writers, highlighting the precarious nature of self-employment for the screenwriters, playwrights, authors, audio dramatists and videogames writers represented by the union.

“The UK faces a [serious] loss of writing talent and this risks pulling the rug from under our world-beating cultural industries, which contribute over £100bn to our economy and enjoy an enviable global profile,” said Ellie Peers, WGGB General Secretary.

“We will be working with our industry partners to address the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on writers, we will continue to campaign and lobby and we will defend our members against poor practice wherever we find it.” 

Problems reported by survey respondents including having less time to work as a writer or apply for funding and development schemes, an industry-wide dearth of opportunity, real wages failing to keep pace with inflation, late payments, shrinking production budgets and reduced audience sizes. 

Many also expressed anxiety about how the cost-of-living crisis would affect the creative industries, fearing that shrinking demand might force organisations to close.