That’s SIC: How Government Data Underrepresents the UK’s Regional Music Sectors

Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes, a UK equivalent of the EU’s NACE classification system, are used by the UK government to gather data on its industrial sectors. This data has been used to inform a 2025 “modern industrial strategy”, in which the UK music industry has been included as a growth sector. Whilst the strategy is underpinned by impressive economic statistics, the government’s reliance on SIC codes to assess economic performance has long been critiqued by the music industry. Given its current limited range of business identifiers, music sector practices are not accurately accounted for by SIC codes. This chapter will reinforce this notion by describing our mapping of 2,916 music organisations in the Liverpool City Region and North East Mayoral Strategic Authority. Here, inconsistencies in business self-categorisation acted as a roadblock to our understanding of regional music sector practices. Less than half of the organisations in both regions were identifiable via SIC code data. This raises the question: How can the UK government provide a coherent music industry sector strategy when the SIC code data on which the strategy is based is inaccurate? To address this, the research advocates for the adoption of an alternate method of economic estimation, based on our regional mapping. This approach works simultaneously from the top-down and bottom-up, providing regional authorities with tools to more accurately map the contribution of music industry to the local economy, as well as making transparent to music organisations the incentives for accurate self-categorisation. The inclusion of the music industry in the UK government’s industrial strategy is encouraging. However, the inaccurate economic underpinning of this strategy undermines its salience. This research proposes a reformation of SIC codes in alignment with our regional findings to make clear to government the economic contribution of the UK music industry.