The BFI has published its Skills Review, examining the needs for training and skills development across the production sector for scripted film and high-end television.

In terms of size and scale, the UK production sector is unrecognisable from even five years ago; with production spend reaching record levels in 2021 at £5.64 billion, rising 63% (£2.19 billion) since 2017. The Review evidences that 'this is leading to increasing – and often critical – crew shortages at all levels, which are beginning to negatively impact the industry and contributing to highly-stressed workplaces. While being felt across the board, the consequent production budget rises are affecting the independent sector most acutely.'

The Review estimates that the current growth in production will require up to 20,770 additional full-time employees by 2025 needing an overall training investment of over £104 million a year, and concludes that the production sector needs to contribute at least 1% of all production budgets to train their existing and future workforce. This would bring it in line with levels of investment in training made by other industries, such as construction.

Other key findings and recommendations of the review include the need for:

– a more formalised approach to hiring, workplace management and professional development.

– stronger bridges into industry from education and other sectors

– an industry-led and localised approach to investment in training

– better data to support policy and action

To kick start delivery against the key findings, the BFI will launch four programmes, focusing on building a more representative workforce and forecasting to enable more strategic distribution of future funding.

Max Rumney, Deputy CEO of Pact commented: “For many years, Independent Producers have been actively training crew and talent in-house and, also, contributing financially to skills education through indie-establishead schemes, such as ScreenSkills. This training and investment has, to date, been voluntarily undertaken by indies in response to their varied business needs throughout the UK and on a broad range of production genres.

Pact welcomes the BFI initiative to evaluate comprehensively the training available in the sector in a way that will help supplement current efforts so that short-term needs are addressed but, also, long- term skills education and professional development schemes are established.”

Find out more about the BFI's Skills Review and its key findings and recommendations here.