Inclusive hiring practices for creative roles
- Written byArts Temps
- Published date 10 November 2026
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How inclusive hiring works in creative recruitment
Key takeaways
- Inclusive hiring runs across the full recruitment process, not just the job advert.
- The Equality Act 2010 sets a legal floor for fair recruitment that applies to every UK employer.
- The creative industries face specific structural barriers that make inclusive hiring harder to achieve without deliberate action.
- Fair pay is not separate from inclusive hiring. It is part of it.
- Working with a specialist recruitment partner can remove much of the complexity from getting the process right.
Most creative organisations will tell you they're committed to inclusive hiring. Fewer can point to an inclusive hiring process that actually reflects it. There's a gap between the values stated in an employer brand and the decisions made at each stage of hiring: from how a role is written to who gets shortlisted, who gets called back, and what they're paid.
The way creative sector job listings are written has been shifting, but the diversity of the workforce has not kept pace.
What is inclusive hiring and why it matters
Inclusive hiring means giving people from different backgrounds, identities, and experiences a genuine and equal opportunity at every stage of your recruitment process. Not just at the job advert stage. It covers how you screen, how you interview, and what you pay.
Understanding why inclusive hiring is important goes beyond the ethical case. For employers, the business rationale is straightforward. Organisations that hire inclusively:
- Draw from a broader talent pool and make more informed hiring decisions
- Build teams that bring different perspectives to problem-solving and reflect the audiences they serve
- Produce more consistent and defensible selection outcomes through structured, criteria-based processes
There is also a legal baseline to meet. Under the Equality Act 2010, discriminating against candidates on the basis of nine protected characteristics, including age, disability, race, sex, religion or belief, and sexual orientation, is unlawful. That applies to job adverts, selection criteria, and interview questions, not only to what happens after someone is hired. In 2024, 74.8% of employers still did not use name-blind CV submissions and 61.7% did not use diverse interview panels. Both carry legal exposure, not just reputational risk.
The creative sector and inclusive hiring
The creative industries present a specific challenge. The barriers to inclusive hiring here are not primarily attitudinal. Most employers in the sector understand the value of a diverse workforce. The problem is structural, and it predates the current conversation about inclusion.
Several patterns are embedded in how the sector operates:
- Network-dependent hiring means access to roles is frequently determined by existing connections rather than capability, particularly for short-notice project-based work
- Unpaid internships remain a common entry route, favouring candidates who can afford to work for free and who have the social networks to secure placements informally
- Geographic concentration places over half of all creative businesses in London and the south-east, creating a barrier for those less able or willing to relocate
These are not fringe issues. They are features of how the sector has always recruited, and they consistently produce the same result. Despite the sector's growth, working-class representation across the creative industries fell from 26% in 2020 to just 19% in 2023, according to DCMS figures. A sector that is expanding but becoming less representative is not one where inclusion is happening by default.
Inclusive hiring best practices for creative recruitment
Getting inclusion right requires deliberate decisions at each stage of recruitment, not a single initiative applied at one point and left. Each of the steps below is a place where bias can enter, or where a different choice changes who gets through.
- Write inclusive job adverts: Use plain language, skills-focused criteria, and no gendered or exclusionary terms. Reduce long lists of requirements that discourage capable candidates from applying, and be specific about which criteria are essential rather than desirable. Publish the salary upfront. Omitting it disadvantages candidates from marginalised groups who are less likely to have informal access to that information through existing networks.
- Broaden where you source candidates: The same sourcing channels produce the same pool. Partnering with universities, community organisations, and specialist talent networks reaches candidates your current process would not.
- Use anonymised screening: Remove names, educational institutions, and dates from applications before hiring managers review them. This keeps assessment focused on skills and experience rather than background cues.
- Structure your interviews: Ask every candidate the same questions, scored against criteria agreed in advance. Structured interviews reduce the influence of personal familiarity and perceived cultural fit on hiring decisions.
- Use diverse interview panels: When everyone on a panel shares the same reference points, the same biases tend to shape the outcome. Different backgrounds, disciplines, and levels of seniority produce more balanced assessments.
- Make reasonable adjustments proactively: Offer adjustments as a standard part of the process. Placing the burden of disclosure on the candidate is itself a barrier to access.
- Publish pay transparently: Salary ranges on job adverts level the playing field from the point of application. Candidates without existing networks in the sector are less likely to know what a role pays or to negotiate effectively without that information.
- Track your recruitment data: Review who applies, who is shortlisted, and who is hired. If candidates from certain backgrounds consistently drop out at the same stage, that is a signal about your process.
Inclusive hiring checklist
Stage | Action | Done? |
Job advert | Write skills-focused criteria and remove gendered or exclusionary language | |
Job advert | Publish the salary range upfront, not on request | |
Job advert | Add an EDI statement and confirm the advert is available in accessible formats | |
Sourcing | Advertise beyond your standard channels to reach candidates outside your existing network | |
Screening | Remove names, dates, and educational institutions from applications before shortlisting | |
Interview | Agree the questions and scoring criteria before any candidate is seen | |
Interview | Proactively offer reasonable adjustments to every candidate, not only those who ask | |
Interview | Use a panel with different backgrounds, disciplines, and levels of seniority | |
Offer | Confirm the salary is fixed, or state clearly if it is negotiable |
Choose UAL Arts Temps as your creative recruitment partner
Getting inclusive hiring right takes process discipline and access to a talent pool that reflects the diversity you are trying to build. UAL Arts Temps is the social enterprise recruitment partner of University of the Arts London. Inclusive hiring practices are not an add-on to what we do. They are the basis on which we operate.
As a corporate member of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, Arts Temps works to the professional and ethical standards the REC sets for the UK recruitment industry. Every candidate we place is paid the London Living Wage as a minimum, which means fair pay is built into each placement from the start. Our approach to ethical, values-led recruitment reflects a social enterprise model where surplus is reinvested into supporting creative careers rather than extracted as profit.
Through our employer recruitment service, you gain direct access to students, graduates, and alumni from six specialist colleges within one of the world's leading art and design universities. The talent pool spans graphic design, fashion, photography, illustration, content, animation, and more. These are people with specialist skills and cross-disciplinary perspectives that generalist agencies cannot replicate.
Take the next step
Inclusive hiring in the creative sector is not complicated in principle. It requires clear job adverts, consistent inclusive hiring strategies, fair pay, and access to a wider pool of candidates than most organisations are currently reaching. The gap between intention and practice closes when those things are treated as standard rather than exceptional.
If you're building a creative team and want to hire with inclusion built in from the start, get in touch with the Arts Temps team or submit a hiring brief and we'll take it from there.
