Precarity and second job-holding in the creative economy

There is extensive research on creative occupations, problematising precariousness, pay gaps, unpaid work and other issues. Less research, and little quantitative work, has looked at multiple job-holding. Issues including portfolio careers, moonlighting, “slashies” and side-hustles are emblematic, and core to the discourse surrounding the creative economy. We use the UK's Labour Force Survey to analyse the extent of multiple job-holding in creative work, and identify three types of second job-holding, according to whether the main, second or both jobs are creative. We compare the characteristics of individuals for each type, and use Understanding Society to show how they move between them over time. We find that second-jobholding is twice as common in core creative as other occupations, and that people working outside London are more likely to combine creative with non-creative work. Those with a creative second job are unlikely to move to a single creative job over time.