Creativity and AI skill demand in the post-ChatGPT labour market
Evidence from UK job vacancies
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21379641 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Zihan Wang (0000-0003-1056-6326, University of Sussex Business School, University of Sussex, corresponding author), Aniket Baksy (0009-0008-8850-1622, The University of Melbourne), Hasan Bakhshi (0000-0002-0643-9925, Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (Creative PEC)), Josh Siepel (0000-0002-5010-8058, University of Sussex Business School, University of Sussex) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 60 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2026-12-31 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Regional Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0034-3404 • E-ISSN: 1360-0591 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00343404.2026.2688960 |
| OpenAlex | W7167717960 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 78 |
Drawing on over 182 million UK job postings from January 2017 to November 2025, we investigate how the association between demand for creativity and artificial intelligence (AI) skills evolves across UK occupational labour market areas following ChatGPT’s release. Our findings reveal a strengthened positive association between demand for these two skillsets post-ChatGPT, particularly in local labour market areas with a higher share of high-skilled roles and the presence of creative clusters. We conclude by emphasising the need for place-based interventions that reflect the differentiated demand- and supply-side priorities across regions in the era of generative AI
Association (psychology) · Creativity · Generative grammar · On demand · Psychological intervention · Regional studies · Supply and demand · Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
Artificial Intelligence and Management
Rising with the machines
The Adjustment of Labor Markets to Robots
Managing Artificial Intelligence
Generative artificial intelligence, human creativity, and art
What can machine learning do? Workforce implications
Pre-Event Trends in the Panel Event-Study Design
When and How Artificial Intelligence Augments Employee Creativity
Innovation and Creativity in Organizations
The Race between Man and Machine
The Skill Content of Recent Technological Change
The future of employment
Technical Change, Inequality, and the Labor Market
Invisible Creativity? Highlighting the Hidden Impact of Freelancing in London's Creative Industries
Exploring the clustering of creative industries
Mapping the state of the art of creative cluster research
Agglomeration and coagglomeration of co-working spaces and creative industries in the city
Artificial Intelligence and Jobs
Assortative labor matching, city size, and the education level of workers
Multiple local co-agglomeration
Fostering skills for the 21st century
Vacancy Duration and Wages
Smart specialisation, Industry 4.0 and lagging regions
Levelling up or down? Addressing regional inequalities in the UK
Education and the spatial division of labour
Local labor market size and qualification mismatch
Skill up
Determinants of rural creative microclustering
Beyond the campus
A critical review of the UK's Modern Industrial Strategy
Differentiating artificial intelligence activity clusters in Australia
Job search in thick markets
Spatial wage disparities
Mapping creative capabilities
Emerging robotic regions in the United States
Regions beyond Industry 4.0
Coworking spaces
Place-based industrial and regional strategy – levelling the playing field
The vulnerability of European regional labour markets to job automation
Regional implications of the Italian inner areas strategy
Coworking spaces and regional development
Trade in creative services
Robots and Jobs
Winners and losers of generative AI
Creative Clusters and Creative Multipliers
Local Demand for AI Skills
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |