High-end film and TV drama will need to find and train nearly 21,000 extra staff by 2025 to cope with an explosion in demand, ScreenSkills has forecast.
The training body has calculated that high-end production will grow by more than a third in value in this time, to £7.7bn.
The sectors currently have a combined workforce of 52,3000 but SVoD operators’ increased presence in the UK, plus the industry’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, will require this to grow by 40%.
ScreenSkills calculates that training these new recruits, and the established workforce, will cost around £100m a year, but would deliver a return of more than 15 times this investment over the three years.
The forecasts are published in the Forecast of Labour Market Shortages and Training Investment Needs in Film and High-end TV Production report, which is ScreenSkills’ contribution to the BFI’s Skills Review, which is due to be published soon.
The report also details the £1.3m generated by ScreenSkills’ Unscripted TV Skills fund in its first year.
The fund has helped 268 producers, development researchers and production coordinators to date.
The production coordinator scheme has reached 83% of people based outside London, while 35% of participants on the producer programme identify as black, Asian or minority ethnic.
