The creative class is a group of people that economist and social scientist Dr. Richard Florida, a professor and head of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, believes are a key driving force for economic development of post-industrial cities in the USA.

Dr Florida describes the 'creative class' as 40 million workers - 30 percent of the U.S. workforce, and breaks the class into two broad sections, derived from standard SOC codes data sets:

• Super-Creative Core: This comprises about twelve percent of all U.S. jobs. This group is deemed to contain a huge range of occupations (e.g. science, engineering, education, computer programming, research) with arts, design, and media workers making a small subset.
• Creative Professionals: These professionals are the classic knowledge-based workers and include those working in healthcare, business and finance, the legal sector, and education.

Dr Florida concludes that the creative class is the core force of economic growth in our future economy, and is expected to add more than 10 million jobs in the next decade.