The City Region is home to Europe’s largest purpose-built digital hub, Media City UK, which sits at the heart of one of the biggest Creative and Media clusters in Europe. Underpinned by major organisations, including the BBC and ITV, the capability spans a breadth of specialisms, with innovation driven by freelancers, startups, SMEs, and global brands.

This has driven strong growth in the sector since 2016, including in TV and broadcasting, which has been among the highest growth industries and now employs 8,000 people in Greater Manchester. Our universities provide almost 4,000 graduates a year in Media, Design, Creative and Performing Arts subjects.

This talent pool feeds a significant and growing industry. Our world renowned music scenes encompasses acts and venues at all scales, and also includes the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) and the Halle Orchestra.

There is undoubted academic strength across all of Greater Manchester’s universities.

Manchester Metropolitan University is among the top ranked universities for Virtual Reality applications and impacts in citation analysis for this study.

University of Salford hosts the Creative Tech Labs and has significant strengths in immersive technologies.

The University of Manchester ranked in the top three nationally in Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies in REF 2021. The RNCM produced almost 350 graduates in creative and performing arts in 2024.

The cluster also has strong links into Greater Manchester’s Digital and AI sector.