ScreenSkills Strategy in Focus: Partnerships

ScreenSkills has published its five-year strategy, developed after consulting with 1,600 professionals across the screen industries. With partnership at its heart, this strategy aims to build an inclusive and agile workforce, powering the UK screen industries and contributing to the UK’s creative economy.

A Sustainable Future for Skills highlighted that strategic partnerships were critical not only across the sector itself, but with education as well as with local, regional and national Government. Interviews with stakeholders saw 81% emphasising the importance of partnerships for ScreenSkills.

ScreenSkills will seek to strengthen its multiple, existing relationships with key sector and trade organisations as well as building new partnerships to achieve its objective of a more collaborative approach to skills across the sector.

While ScreenSkills will continue to commission programmes to mitigate skills gaps and shortages, it will redefine how it builds and sustain partnerships in the future.

This collaborative approach to skills includes working closely with screen agencies and the BFI Skills Clusters to better utilise resources and funding, avoid duplicating training provision and share expertise. Additionally, clearer signposting via its hub and other platforms of training and development opportunities will simplify the skills landscape for companies as well as the workforce.

This approach will provide greater flexibility to respond to regional needs and will play a crucial role in strengthening local production and workforce resilience.

4Skills and ScreenSkills

ScreenSkills and 4Skills are partnering on a pilot to research the size and profile of the screen industries' workforce and have commissioned Ampere Analysis to conduct the study. This study will provide a detailed breakdown of the film and television production and post production workforce by region, department, role, seniority and demographics. The methodology includes creating a taxonomy of roles and departments, workforce modelling, surveys of workers and interviews with employers, and will estimate production activity and workforce capacity, highlighting areas of shortage or oversupply.

The research, funded by Channel 4’s training and development programme 4Skills, aims to give a clearer understanding of workforce scale, size and labour market trends. It will provide more accurate data for future studies and help organisations measure the impact of their training programmes.

Additionally, the findings will guide resource allocation, identify skills gaps and shortages, assist in better setting targets and improve understanding of the industry's demographics, focusing on equity, diversity and inclusion.

The BBC, Create Central and ScreenSkills

Create Central, BBC and ScreenSkills will partner to support the West Midlands Skills Accelerator cluster programme, now in its second year. An industry-led body established to turbo-charge the creative content sector in the region, Create Central has identified the need for a more granular mapping of skills gaps across the region to support the development targeted training and development activity to meet these needs. This will provide the skills and workforce to fuel the ongoing growth of the production sector in the West Midlands. The design and delivery of the regional skills initiatives will look to widen access and opportunity to the screen and creative industries, and reflect the diversity of the West Midlands, including socio-economic diversity. ScreenSkills will provide the specialist research and data resource to enable the West Midlands to identify current and future sector skills needs and work with the BBC and other local partners, such as the West Midlands Combined Authority, to develop targeted interventions drawing from existing funding sources.

ScreenSkills will also coordinate and pilot other collaborations aimed at addressing skills gaps by bringing together broadcasters, Skills Clusters and local organisations,, producers and training bodies. These initiatives will be strategically coordinated yet locally focused, developing practical, production-ready skills that promote sustainability and growth recognising the devolved nature of skills.

ScreenSkills Training Passport

The ScreenSkills Training Passport, currently in its pilot phase with partners BBC Studios, Sky, ITV Studios and Pact, aims to simplify career pathways and standardise skill provision across the screen industries. Designed to be a portable record of an individual’s essential training achievements, the passport provides a streamlined way for professionals (particularly freelancers) to demonstrate their expertise to employers. Since its launch in May 2024, over 4,000 professionals, including individuals from over 30 productions by the pilot partners, have completed the passport. It supports employers by making it easier to verify a worker’s credentials and identify training needs. Central to both simplifying career progression and standardising skills provision, we will develop the Training Passport with partners across the industry with the aim that it becomes an essential tool in the industry's efforts to address skills gaps, enhance workforce mobility and ensure consistent standards across the sector.