In 2025, 12,900 people aged 16–74 were employed in the cultural and creative industries, which corresponds to 5.7% of the Icelandic labour market, according to Statistics Iceland’s Labour force survey. This share decreased by 15.2% from the previous year, when the ratio was at 6.7%. Over a ten‑year period, the number of people employed in the cultural and creative industries has decreased by just under 19.4%, while overall employment in Iceland has increased by 19.5%.
Cultural employment by employment status
Of those who worked in the cultural and creative industries in 2025, around 60.5% were employees, about one‑quarter were self‑employed and 15.5% were both. These proportions have remained fairly stable over the past five years. It is worth noting that the share of self‑employed people in the Icelandic labour market overall is 11.6%, and the proportion is higher within the cultural and creative industries. In the Icelandic labour market, 26,200 people are self‑employed, and thereof, 3,200, or about 12.2%, work in the cultural and creative industries.
The number of people working as employees or as self‑employed individuals decreased considerably year‑on‑year, by 16.1% and 23.8% respectively, while the number of people working in both capacities increased by 200, or by 11.1%.
Cultural employment by cultural sector
Employment in the cultural and creative industries can be divided into three categories: 1) Cultural occupations within cultural industries, e.g. an actor working in a theatre, 2) other occupations within cultural industries, e.g. a theatre’s financial manager and 3) cultural occupations in other industries, e.g. a graphic designer at a technology company.
In the first category, which is also the largest, around 4,900 people work, representing 37.7% of the total number of those working in the cultural and creative industries. Approximately 4,300 people work in the second category, or 33.1% of the total. About 3,800 people work in the third category, or 29.2%.
There were considerable changes in these categories between the years 2024 and 2025. The number of people working in cultural occupations within the cultural industries fell by 23.4% from the previous year, when the total was 6,400. In additon, cultural occupations in other industries also decreased, or by 15.5%. However, other occupations within the cultural industries were more stable, declining only by 2.2%.
Main and second job in the cultural and creative industry
Among those employed in the cultural and creative industries in 2025, around 11.200 people, or 86.8%, that employment was their main job, and 1,700, or 13.2%, a secondary job.
The number of people working with a main job in the cultural and creative industries decreased by 18.2% from the previous year, when 13,700 were in main employment, while there was a slight increase in the number of people in secondary employment by 6.3%, rising from 1,600 in 2024. The proportion of women in secondary employment was considerably higher than that of men, with about 600 more women working in secondary jobs, accounting for 15.9% of employed women compared with 8.3% of employed men.
About the data
This data comes from both the Icelandic Labour force survey (IS-LFS). Cultural employment is based on the definitions of Eurostat.
In IS-LFS data there is a cross-tabulation of cultural occupations (ÍSTARF95) and cultural industries (ÍSAT08) which Eurostat categorises as ‘fully cultural’. Cultural employment thus refers to all occupations in cultural industries as well as cultural occupations in other industries. In total, numbers for cultural employment from IS-LFS include all those who have a main and/or a second job within cultural occupations or cultural industries.
Each individual is counted only once, even if they are both self-employed and employees in the cultural industries. If a person has a second job within culture, but a main job in other sector, they are included in the cultural employment but not the other.
As the RBE data does not include information on occupation classifications (ÍSTARF95), only industries are included and therefore only those employed in cultural industries are counted.