ScreenSkills is the industry-led skills body for the UK's screen-based creative industries - animation, film, games, television including children's TV and high-end drama, VFX and immersive technology. ScreenSkills work across the whole of the country to ensure that UK screen has access now, and in the future, to the skills and talent needed for continued success.
ScreenSkills provide insight, career development and other opportunities to help grow and sustain the skilled and inclusive workforce which is the foundation stone of the UK’s global screen success.
Their work includes:
- Identifying skills gaps – current and future – across the screen industries and the whole of the country to provide an evidence base for investment in skills and training
- Providing careers information
- Mapping and quality-marking professional pathways to improve entry-level diversity and work readiness
- Supporting development at every stage of a professional career in screen including through mentoring and offering bursaries
Their approach is:
- Industry-informed and owned: shaped by business intelligence and industry demands
- Efficient: direct industry input delivers skills and training to meet priority needs
- Partnership-led: harnessing the expertise of trade bodies, agencies, guilds, broadcasters, indies and others including the Royal Television Society, BAFTA and the British Film Institute (BFI)
- Inclusive and accessible: embedding diversity in the workforce they help build
Their revenue includes:
- Contributions paid by industry through the skills investment funds
- National Lottery funds awarded by the BFI
- Funds from key UK broadcasters and independent production companies
- Awards from partner organisations
ScreenSkills provide targeted, efficient interventions to retain and build the skilled workforce which underpins the UK’s screen success. Partnership with other organisations such as Creative & Cultural Skills (CCS), who support the broader arts, reinforces key messaging on the importance of skills and training – built on a good, rounded education in schools – to the country’s thriving creative industries.
How they do it
ScreenSkills supports talent at every level, from new entrants to programmes for mid-career professionals and executives and across the industry, from production accounting to exhibition and grips to writers.
They provide or are developing services to support the finding, nurturing and retention of award-winning talent including:
- Careers information: offering crucial information on the jobs in screen and pathways to them
- Apprenticeships: creating new apprenticeship standards to answer skills needs
- Skills forecasting: gathering robust evidence to inform skills investment
- Mentoring: a standardised mentoring programme for talent at all levels
- Excellence clusters: targeted skills development across nations and regions
- Quality marking: industry approval - the Tick - for higher and further education and short courses
- Bursaries: support for those who need help with fees, transport, living or childcare costs
- Training: world-class professional development courses