Hidden in plain sight: neurodiversity, creative labour, and the limits of inclusion in the UK screen industries

This article offers a critical, conceptual review of neurodiversity in the UK screen industries. Despite evidenced overrepresentation in the sector, and unlike gender, race, class, and disability, neurodivergence remains largely absent from creative labour scholarship and industry debate. We argue this absence is symptomatic, sustained by inadequate data, conflation with broader disability categories, and creative work’s premium on employability and resilience. Drawing on media industry studies, cultural policy, and critical disability studies, we now develop three claims: that neurodivergent marginalisation operates through the terms of presence rather than absence; that prevailing inclusion models are affirmative rather than transformative, admitting workers to arrangements that themselves produce exclusion; and that access to recognition is stratified by class and place, as diagnosis is rationed by ability to pay and uneven provision. We argue for a neurodivergent labour politics oriented towards collective, structural change, and set out a research agenda with wider international relevance.