This article investigates attitudes towards inequality among creativeworkers. In the UK, there is considerable public interest in access tocreative jobs, and a concern that these jobs are limited to those fromprivileged backgrounds. Moreover, both inequalities in cultural work andthe attitudes of cultural workers have been important areas of study forexisting research. Based on a web survey (N=2487), thisarticle investigates attitudes among creative workers, and finds that thecharacteristics

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... t are most consistently associated with success bycreative workers are hard work and ambition, rather than structuralfactors, such privileged social origins, gender or ethnicity. Usingprincipal components analysis and regression, we show that there are threemain factors related to getting ahead, associated with reproduction,meritocracy, and education, and we show that those in the most privilegedpositions – broadly, the highest-paid white non-disabled men – are thosemost likely to deny an account of success in the creative industries associated with cultural reproduction. Weconclude that the attitudes held by creative workers, and who holds whichattitudes, make it unlikely that access to the sector and trajectories ofindividual progression within the sector will change.This paper has been submitted to a journal for consideration.