Growth Sectors
Scotland's Economic Strategy 2015 reaffirms the Scottish Government’s focus on key growth sectors of the economy. These key growth sectors include:
- Energy (including renewables)
- Sustainable Tourism
- Creative Industries (including digital)
- Life Sciences
- Financial & Business Services
- Food & Drink (including agriculture & fisheries)
SABS includes the GVA and Turnover data for the Growth Sectors as defined using Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) 2007 codes.
As shown in Chart 4, it has been a mixed performance for the growth sectors over the latest annual period – with GVA rising for the Sustainable Tourism, Food & Drink and Life Sciences but GVA falling for the Energy, Business Services and Creative Industries growth sectors.
Chart 4: Growth Sectors - GVA changes in 2015/16

Energy
Note that the SABS energy sector results include off-shore oil and gas activity; GVA associated with off-shore activity, under UK regional accounts procedures, is normally allocated to a separate ‘Extra Regio’ category rather than allocated to a region within the UK.
In 2016, GVA in the energy sector in Scotland amounted to £12.9 billion, representing a £1.6 billion (or 11.2%) decrease on 2015; this fall is as a result of the decline in the oil price.
The decline in GVA in the energy sector over the latest year has been driven by the mining support service activities sub-sector (down £877 million on 2015) and the engineering related scientific and technical consulting activities sub-sector (down £711 million on 2015). Over the latest year, GVA in the extraction of crude petroleum and natural gas sub-sector decreased also, down £269 million which represents a 4.7% decrease on 2015 - this follows a 37.8% fall in the previous annual period (2014 to 2015).
Financial and Business Services (partial)
Totals for the Financial and Business Services growth sector relate only to those sectors fully covered in SABS – and so Financial & Insurance Activities are not included. The SABS results therefore really only cover the business services sector within the growth sector.
In 2016, GVA in the business services sector in Scotland amounted to £7.0 billion, representing a £629 million (or 8.2%) decrease on 2015.
The GVA decline in the businesses services sector over the latest year has been driven by the other engineering activities sub-sector (down £724 million or 28.5% on 2015), which like the trend in the energy growth sector support industries will be related to the downturn in the oil and gas sector as a result of the decline in the oil price.
Creative Industries
In 2016, GVA in the creative industries sector in Scotland amounted to £4.4 billion (down £306 million or 6.5% on 2015). The fall in GVA in the creative industries sector over the latest year is driven by purchases increasing more so than turnover - purchases up £409 million and turnover up £110 million between 2015 and 2016.
The GVA decline over the latest year has been driven by GVA falling in the software/electronic publishing sub-sector (down £319 million or 14.2% on 2015) - turnover in this sub-sector fell by £341 million between 2015 and 2016, whereas purchases fell by only £27 million over the same period.
Sustainable Tourism (tourism-related industries)
In 2016, turnover in the tourism-related industries sector in Scotland amounted to £7.1 billion (up £401 million or 6.0% on 2015) and GVA amounted to £3.9 billion (up £300 million or 8.4% on 2015).
In 2016, the local authority areas with the highest tourism-related industries sector GVA were City of Edinburgh (19.2% of Scotland’s tourism-related industries GVA), Glasgow City (11.5%) and Highland (6.8%).
The tourism-related industries sector play a particularly important part in the economies of some of the more rural local authority areas – for example, in 2016, 10.6% of the Orkney Island’s non-financial business economy GVA was generated by the tourism-related industries sector, this compares to 4.7% for Scotland as a whole.
Chart 5 below shows the GVA performance of sub-sectors within the Sustainable Tourism sector between 2008 and 2015-16. It shows that the Hotels and Restaurants sub-sectors have made the largest contributions in all years.
Chart 5: Sustainable Tourism 2008 v 2015 v 2016 - Gross Value Added by sub-sectors

Food and Drink (partial)
Totals for the Food and Drink growth sector relate only to those sectors covered in SABS – and therefore agriculture is not included. Food and Drink, as presented in the SABS results, relates only to:
- SIC 3: Fishing and Aquaculture
- SIC 10: Manufacture of Food Products
- SIC 11: Manufacture of Beverages
In 2016, GVA in the food and drink growth sector (as covered by SABS) in Scotland amounted to £4.1 billion, representing a £374 million (or 10.0%) increase on 2015, with GVA increasing over the year for each of the three sub-sectors.
Life Sciences
In 2016, GVA in the life sciences sector in Scotland amounted to £1.5 billion, representing a £228 million (or 17.7%) increase on 2015.
The increase in life sciences sector GVA over the latest year was driven by the pharmaceutical sector (up £183 million or 49.3% on 2015).