Abstract
The paper questions the link that policymakers assume exists between qualifications and access to employment in the creative and cultural (C&C) sector. It identifies how labour market conditions in the C&C sector undermine this assumption and how the UK’s policy formation process inhibits education and training (E&T) actors from countering these labour market conditions. It demonstrates how non–government agencies (‘intermediary organisations’) are creating new spaces to assist aspiring entrants to develop the requisite forms of ‘vocational practice’, ‘social capital’ and ‘moebius-strip’ (i.e. entrepreneurial) expertise to enter and succeed in the sector. It concludes by identifying a number of: (i) new principles for the governance of E&T at a national level; (ii) pedagogic strategies to facilitate ‘horizontal’ transitions into and within the C&C sector; and (iii) skill formation issues for all E&T stakeholders to address.