The Rt Hon Rachel Reeves MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the Government’s Spending Review (SR) today (11th June 2025) in Parliament. The SR includes a commitment for “…a significant increase in funding to support regional growth and drive innovation, develop creative places, and ensure the UK’s creative industries remain world-leading”. The SR documents do not set out the specific policies – these will be included in the Creative Industries Sector Plan and the forthcoming Industrial Strategy White Paper. These will be published later in June.
The SR includes provision for:
- “…a significant increase in funding for the creative industries as one of the government’s eight growth driving sectors. This settlement will help drive regional growth and innovation and develop creative places.”
- £29 billion for the NHS. This equates to a 3 per cent real terms rise in annual day to day spending.
- Defence expenditure will rise from 2.3 per cent of GDP in 2023 to 2.6 per cent of GDP in 2027.
- £15.6 billion funding in total by 2031-32 for local transport projects in England’s city regions and £2.3 billion from 2026-27 to 2029-30 for local transport improvements outside of these nine regions.
- £39 billion of investment over ten years through a new Affordable Homes Programme.
- £14.2 billion for Sizewell C, £2.5 billion for one of Europe’s first Small Modular Reactor programmes and £9.4 billion to UK carbon capture and storage over the Spending Review period.
- The schools budget in England will grow by £2 billion in real terms between 2025-26 and 2028-29. The SR will also provide funding for skills, including to ensure 1.3 million 16‑19 year‑olds can access high‑quality training opportunities.
- Government funding for R&D will rise to £22.6 billion by 2029-30.
- Funding for the British Business Bank will rise to £25.6 billion.
- The government increased the capital envelope by over £100 billion at the Autumn Budget 2024 (£107 billion from 2025‑26 to 2029‑30) and by a further £13 billion over the same period at Spring Statement 2025.
Dr Richard Wilson OBE, TIGA CEO, said:
“The Government’s commitment to ‘a significant increase in funding for the creative industries as one of the government’s eight growth driving sectors’ is encouraging. We look forward to seeing the specific policies that will be set out in the Creative Industries Sector Plan and the forthcoming Industrial Strategy White Paper. Plans in the SR for capital investment, investment in education and for the British Business Bank are also positive.
“The UK games industry will also be looking with interest to the Autumn Budget. The single most important measure that the Government can take to drive investment, employment and studio growth in the UK video games industry is to enhance the Video Games Expenditure Credit. In our submission to Government, as well as emphasising the importance of investing in the UK Games Fund, we suggested that it could consider raising the rate of VGEC from 34 per cent to 39 per cent; raising qualifying expenditure from 80 per cent to 100 per cent; and or introducing an Independent Games Tax Credit (IGTC) with a rate of 53 per cent on 80 per cent of qualifying costs, on budgets for games of up to £23.5 million, in line with the existing Independent Film Tax Credit. One or more of these reforms would help to keep the UK a leading location for game development globally, boost investment, create high skilled jobs, and encourage the growth of games clusters throughout the UK.”
Notes to Editors
For further information, see:
- The Spending Review document
- The Chancellor’s speech in full (text).
- A link to re-watch the Chancellor’s speech in full
- All associated supplementary documents here.
TIGA is the trade association for the UK video games industry. TIGA’s vision is to make the UK the best place in the world to develop video games. To this end, TIGA:
- engages with policymakers to create an environment favourable to video games development;
- enhances education and skills through our accreditation programme, the TIGA Games Education Awardsand our education conference;
- promotes best practice through our membership services, including the TIGA Games Industry Awards;
- conducts primary research into the games sector, surveying hundreds of companies each year about the business environment, support policies and the health of the industry.
Get in touch:
Tel: 0845 468 2330
Email: info@tiga.org
Web: www.tiga.org
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