At Least Half of UK Game Studios Have Four or Less Employees

The video game industry is currently changing in the UK, and 59 percent of UK studios have a full-time staff of four employees or less, according to the UK independent games trade group.

It’s a nine percent increase compared to 2013, with the studios showing a trend of staying small and only hand-selecting people to join their teams.

There is a growing shift to mobile gaming, and that is leading a boom in smaller, successful game studios popping up throughout the UK.

Here is what Dr. Richard Wilson, TIGA CEO, said in a recent statement:

“In Alice in Wonderland fashion, the UK games development and digital publishing sector has achieved the apparently impossible feat of expanding and shrinking at the same time.  On the one hand, the number of studios expanded from 448 in 2012 to 620 in 2013.  On the other hand, the proportion of studios with more than five or [more] personnel shrunk from 50 percent to 41 percent over the same period.”

The UK government has offered certain tax breaks for video game studios, helping create more than 10,000 jobs in the job sector, according to TIGA.  There will be a net tax gain of £361m through 2019, with game studios in Canada reportedly interested in setting up shop in the UK.

Thank you to GamesIndustry International for providing us with this information

Image courtesy of TIGA