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New Soundings platform, created by MusicFutures R&D lead, Pete Woodbridge, reveals Liverpool’s unique position as a global music city — while highlighting the rapid growth of its wider creative and digital economy.

Liverpool City Region has the UK’s strongest music-focused large creative economy, with one in five creative businesses operating in music, according to new analysis revealed through Soundings, an interactive mapping platform developed by the University of Liverpool.

The platform also reveals that the city that gave the world The Beatles is now home to almost as many AI and data companies as music companies.

The platform shows that 1,798 of the city region’s 8,966 registered creative businesses (20.1%) have a music dimension – a higher proportion than Manchester (13.8%), Glasgow (17.2%) and London (12.5%). At the same time, Liverpool City Region is now home to 1,468 AI and data companies, underlining the growing scale of the regions digital technology sector alongside its world-famous musical heritage.

The findings are among the first insights from Soundings, created by the University of Liverpool’s Pete Woodbridge, who is R&D Lead at AHRC Creative Industries Cluster project MusicFutures. The Soundings platform maps more than 745,000 live creative and digital companies across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, enabling anyone to explore the UK’s creative economy by drawing an area on an interactive map, filtering businesses by creative subsector, and instantly generating reports on the organisations located there.

The Liverpool City Region data also reveals the pace at which the sector is evolving. More than half (58.5%) of the creative businesses currently operating across the region were formed in the last five years while 1,444 new creative and digital companies were incorporated during 2025 alone the equivalent of almost four new businesses every day.

The map also demonstrates that the region’s creative economy extends well beyond Liverpool city centre. While Liverpool remains the largest hub, 54% of creative businesses are based elsewhere in the city region, including 1,912 companies in Wirral and 1,403 in Sefton, alongside thriving creative communities in Halton, Knowsley and St Helens.

Pete Woodbridge, R&D Lead at MusicFutures and creator of Soundings, said:

“Liverpool has always been recognised around the world as a city of music, but what surprised me was seeing just how broad and fast-moving our creative economy has become.

“The city that gave the world The Beatles now has almost as many AI companies as music companies. That’s a remarkable story about how the Liverpool City Region is evolving, while still building on the creative heritage it’s famous for.

“Soundings lets people see that story for themselves. Whether you’re a local authority planning investment, a university looking for industry partners, a business searching for collaborators or someone who simply wants to understand the creative economy on their doorstep, you can explore it in minutes rather than waiting months for a commissioned report.

“Perhaps most importantly, it shows that Liverpool City Region’s creative economy doesn’t stop at the city centre. There are thriving creative businesses across Wirral, Sefton, St Helens, Knowsley and Halton, and having that evidence helps us better understand and support the whole region.”

 

For decades, detailed information about the UK’s creative economy has largely been available through expensive commissioned studies or high-level national statistics that provide little insight into individual towns, neighbourhoods or local economies.

Soundings bridges that gap by bringing together publicly available Companies House data with an interactive mapping interface based on the Government’s DCMS Creative Industries classifications. Users can search by location, set a radius or draw bespoke boundaries, explore individual creative subsectors including music, film and television, games, design, software, publishing and advertising, and generate downloadable reports tailored to their chosen area.

The platform has been designed for local authorities, combined authorities, universities, colleges, businesses, community organisations and creative practitioners looking to better understand their local creative economy, identify potential collaborators and support evidence-based investment decisions.

The platform also captures the depth and heritage of Liverpool City Region’s creative economy. The oldest organisation currently mapped is the Old Lerpoolian Society, founded in 1894, alongside long-established institutions including Henry Willis & Sons (1901) and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society (1906). At the other end of the spectrum, hundreds of creative businesses shown on the map have been established within the past year.

Alongside businesses, the Liverpool City Region map includes 361 curated pieces of creative infrastructure, including 81 venues and performance spaces, 43 studios and workspaces, and 31 festivals and events, providing a richer picture of the region’s creative ecosystem.

The Soundings platform is currently undergoing its final demo stage, will its official public release expected in Autumn 2026.