Why Brighton's creative businesses fall outside typical business support - and where to find help that fits

Brighton's creative and digital sector is a genuine economic engine. Nationally, the creative industries saw the largest absolute jobs growth of any sector tracked by Gov.uk between 2019 and 2025, adding 363,000 filled jobs. The South East holds the second-largest regional share of that creative workforce outside London, and Brighton's own creative-tech cluster has grown from small over the past decade into one of Europe's most vibrant, with more than 1,500 high-value businesses.

So why do some designers, developers and agency founders in this city say that some business support "isn't really for them"?

The support gap is structural, not accidental

First, 93.4% of creative industries businesses are micro-businesses employees - a noticeably higher proportion than UK businesses as a whole. Second, self-employment makes up around 29% of the creative workforce, roughly double the 15% rate across the wider UK workforce.

Put those together and you get a sector dominated by small but growing businesses, exactly the kind of business that traditional support infrastructure, built with retail, manufacturing or hospitality in mind, often struggles to reach. A funding advisor thinking in terms of stock, premises or headcount doesn't always have an obvious answer for a five-person branding studio whose most real assets are its people and its client relationships.

There's also a mindset gap. Many creative founders started out as practitioners first - a designer, a developer, a photographer who became business owners almost by accident, as client work grew into a studio. That's a very different starting point to someone who set out from day one to "start a business," and it means classic small business advice (cash flow forecasting, growth planning, people management) can feel like it belongs to a different world, even when it's exactly what's needed.

The result is a sector that is economically vital, growing fast, and yet often quietly under-served - not because the support doesn't exist, but because it wasn't designed with creative businesses in mind.

Why generalist leadership training works for creative founders too

This is precisely the gap a leadership and management programme like Help to Grow: Management, delivered through business schools including the University of Brighton, is well placed to fill. It isn't sector-specific and that's the point. Many creative businesses have taken the course and reported how much they learn from businesses in completely different sectors. The skills a growing creative agency actually needs - how to plan for growth, manage a team as it scales beyond the founder doing everything

themselves, make decisions with confidence rather than gut instinct alone - are the same skills any growing SME needs, whatever it makes or designs.

That's borne out by people who've been through it. Chamber member Rich Ford of Sherlock Studio, who took the course in Brighton, described the impact two years on:

“Help to Grow provided excellent preparation for the next stage of my career: since I took the course, I have become Managing Director of Sherlock Studio. The course gave me a broad view of how to run a business but most importantly, helped give me the skills and confidence to run one! Inspired by the in-depth case studies, we have a number of exciting, innovative initiatives in the pipeline that I'm looking forward to trialling. The importance of ‘test & learn’ was something that really stuck with me.”

What this means for you

If you run a design studio, a web or digital agency, or any creative business that's grown past the founder doing every job themselves, the barriers to formal business support are rarely about eligibility - they're about finding a programme that speaks a language that fits how creative businesses actually operate.

Help to Grow: Management is designed for exactly this stage: businesses with proven products or services, at least 5 staff (including freelancers) and ambitions to grow further that need structured leadership skills. Delivered locally at the University of Brighton, it's a practical route to exactly the kind of confidence and planning skills described above — the sort that turns a founder still doing everything into a leader who can step back, plan, and grow the business around them.

Melanie Dumelow works with Help to Grow, you can find out more about them here.

If you want to contribute to the Chamber blog, contact us on hannah@brightonchamber.co.uk