The UK government’s createch strategy puts the creative industries as a pillar of economic growth. Ad tech should be considered a core part of that…

The UK government has been outspoken in recent months regarding the importance of the creative 'createch' industries, with new strategies to boost R&D, scale creative businesses, attract investment, protect IP, develop skills, and strengthen the UK’s position as a global hub for innovation. 

The emphasis is firmly on commercialisation as well as cultural value, turning the UK’s creative strengths into a bigger, faster-growing part of the economy.

Ian Murray, the UK’s Minister of State for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, said, when speaking in Liverpool in late 2025: "I want to make createch as important as fintech."

This, coupled with the British Business Bank’s recent investment of £45m into the creative industries, highlights a better understanding of just how much the creative industries mean to the UK as a pillar of economic growth - rather than a cultural afterthought. It signals a more forward-looking approach to policy. At a time when global competition for talent, capital, and intellectual property is intensifying, overt backing of creativity and technology is essential, and music to the ears to many working in the industry.

Yet, for all its strengths, the current framing of createch risks overlooking a critical component of the ecosystem. It focuses primarily on the technologies that enable the production of creative content - including virtual production and AI tools. Yes, these are vital. But there’s something missing…

Ad tech: the technology that monetises that content at scale.

Why ad tech should be included

Advertising technology is the commercial infrastructure of the modern creative economy. It’s the unseen pipes, the system through which content is funded, distributed, and ultimately made viable as a business. Without it, even the most innovative creative output struggles to find sustainable revenue.

In the UK alone, advertising supports approximately 1.7 million jobs across media, marketing, publishing, and the broader digital economy, that’s 5% of UK employment. 

Ad tech sits at the centre of this system, connecting creators with audiences and enabling the flow of investment that underpins everything from journalism to streaming video, gaming, and beyond.

Put simply: createch is ad tech. Ian Forrester, CEO and founder of DAIVID, who is taking part in the Grow London createch trip to Japan, said: "I'd argue ad tech is currently underrepresented in the conversation. When people think about createch, they tend to think about production tools, generative AI, creative software. All important. But the measurement and effectiveness layer, understanding what creative actually does, how it performs, what emotional response it drives, and how brands can improve outcomes, is equally significant."

Reaching createch's full economic potential

If createch is intended to capture the full economic potential of the creative industries, it must include the mechanisms by which those industries generate income. Forrester continues: "The industry has spent decades building rigour around media measurement. Thanks to advancements in AI that have made creative measurement possible at scale, it is only now catching up on the creative side. The appetite for sophisticated creative measurement tools is global, and UK companies are well placed to meet it. If the UK can establish itself as the home of creative intelligence, not just the creative work but the intelligence layer around it, that is a serious economic opportunity."

The UK is already a global leader in advertising technology, with a deep ecosystem spanning demand-side platforms, supply-side platforms, measurement and verification companies, data infrastructure, and creative optimisation tools. London, in particular, remains one of the world’s key hubs for programmatic innovation and digital media trading.

This leadership reflects decades of expertise in media, finance, and technology, combined with a regulatory environment that, while evolving, has historically supported innovation. We also export our capabilities globally, reinforcing the UK’s position as a net contributor to the digital economy.

What’s next?

The government has made a strong and timely call in recognising createch as a growth engine. The opportunity now is to build on that foundation by ensuring it captures the full ecosystem. Rich Ashton of First Party Capital, believes ad tech should be an essential component of the creative tech landscape: "We welcome the government's commitment to the creative industries as a genuine growth priority. The createch agenda is the right one given its importance to the UK economy. But ad tech must be part of this narrative. Bringing it explicitly within the createch agenda would be a natural and powerful extension of a strategy that is already working."

There is also a broader narrative at play. As debates around AI, data usage, and platform power continue, the role of advertising technology is often misunderstood or reduced to its most contentious aspects. In reality, ad tech is one of the primary mechanisms through which free and open access to content is sustained. It enables diverse voices to reach audiences, supports independent publishers, and underpins the economic model of much of the internet.

Back ad tech as a core component of createch, and the UK does more than support its creative industries. It positions itself as the owner of the infrastructure that powers them.

That is a far more ambitious, and far more valuable, proposition.