- £10.5 million to be invested in training and development in 2023/24
- 81% say that skill shortages and gaps are a significant concern
- Twice as many respondents (41%) say the skills issue has worsened
- Increased call for leadership and financial management training
The High-End Television Funds annual workforce research published today (March 31 2023) highlights the continued skills shortages and gaps in high-end TV production. Produced annually since 2017, the qualitative and quantitative research looks at skills shortages experienced across the UK - the lack of available crew to make progammes; and skills gaps - the perceived lack of experience and skill - across the industry.
The High-end Television Fund is part of ScreenSkills, the skills body for the UK screen industries. An independent charity, industry funded and business-led, it helps to train people at every career stage. High-end television is defined as productions that cost more than £1m per broadcast hour to produce.
“This research highlights the fact that the boom in high quality and successful high-end television productions made in the UK is having a continued impact on skills,” commented Kaye Elliott, Director of the High-end Television Fund, at ScreenSkills. ”However, there is cause for cautious optimism. The forthcoming audio-visual expenditure credit and maintaining the qualifying tax relief threshold at £1m will mean so many of our well loved shows continue to be made in the UK and ScreenSkills’ HETV Council has also agreed a further annual increase in its investment in training and development by increasing the caps on qualifying productions to strengthen collective investment in skills development.”
In March 2023, the HETV Skills Council, which includes a representative from PACT, agreed to increase the cap for contributions to the Fund, which is the amount tax qualifying productions pay into The Fund to invest back in skills. In 2023/24, an increase by CPI will be introduced, increasing the contribution for productions with budgets of less than £5 million per episode to £73,300 and £110,500 for productions over £5 million per episode. These increases mean that in 2023/2024, £10.5 million will be invested in training and development programmes.
The research evidenced that the high demand for crew in HETV continues to result in skills shortages. 81% of respondents, a slight decrease on the previous year (2021: 86%) was serious or very serious; and twice as many respondents said that the skills issue had worsened - 41% versus 22%.
Specific issues highlighted by the research included a lack of business and management skills and crew often being given increased responsibility, ‘stepping up’, too early due to the lack of available skills crew in every role. Almost nine out of ten respondents (87%) cited the issue of stepping up as a cause for concern; and 75% referenced the lack of business and management skills. The percentage increased to 84% when the lack of craft of technical experience and skills was included.
Other factors impacting on the TV production include the demand for increasing levels of pay, which rose from 68% to 81% and ‘show jumping’ – when crew leave a programme mid production to take up a new job (76%). While concerns about availability of crew has decreased (71%), it was still quoted by respondents as an area of concern.
79% of respondents highlighted the skills gap in terms of leadership skills as a significant issue – an increase of 34% from the previous survey; with 70% also citing the issue of financial management.
In terms of specific grades shortages, there were year on year increases in many of the same roles, with notable increases in roles including Post production supervisor (2022/23: 24%; 2021/22: 9%); Editor (27%; 9%). This year, a new shortage in post-production supervisors (24%) was highlighted alongside increasing shortages in art departments in general.
In 2022, the HETV Skills Fund supported approximately 5,000 individuals to enter and progress in the industry via industry targeted initiatives which are helping to tackle many of the issues highlighted in the research and which were voluntarily cited by respondents. These included Trainee Finder, providing paid placements for production talent to enter the industry across the UK; Make A Move, which provides on-the-job training enabling career progression for those stepping up; Leadership and Management training and anti-bullying and harassment training now in its fourth year of delivery as well as ScreenSkills wider Work Well e-learning series. The HETV Fund also deliver Leaders of Tomorrow, a three-year management training programme for mid-level professionals. In April 2023, the HETV Fund, together with ScreenSkills animation, children’s and film funds will launch another year-long Trainee Finder programme, which helps to secure placements for production trainees based all across the UK and includes finance training and mentoring. In 2023/24, the programme will support over 350 trainees, and between launch in 2016 and 2022 it supported over 1,400 people complete 3,335 placements to continue their careers in the screen industries.
Respondents were also asked to identify areas which the HETV Skills Fund should further focus on in the future, As well as continuing to tackle specific grade shortages (63%), other key themes included training to support wider skills development and inclusion and diversity.
“From training new entrants and providing ongoing career development and leadership training, the survey respondents recognise the significant impact the HETV Fund makes,” added Elliott. “As HETV production in the UK continues to increase, we will use the results of this research to further invest in training and development programmes to support the UK’s production community and ensure that the UK remains a first class destination for high-end television production.”
Notes to Editors
Research Methodology
The High-end Television Workforce research was conducted between October 2022 to January 2023.
The sample of respondents consisted largely of those directly involved in crewing up productions (e.g. line producers, heads of production, producers), with additional interviews with those in senior roles within production and those in broadcasting and support agency positions.
63 pre-interview online surveys were completed and 83% of those who completed the screening questionnaire were currently working on an HETV production. 48 in-depth interviews were subsequently completed.
The research conducted across the UK – 63% of the respondents were in London; 27% from across the English region; and 10% from the Nations.
High-end Television Fund (HETV)
Launched in 2013, all high-end TV productions intending to take advantage of UK high-end TV tax relief contribute to the Fund.
In the past decade the Fund has collected and invested just over £33 million in skills and training for the high-end TV industry.
The five major broadcasters support the Skills Fund on both in-house and commissioned productions, along with streamers including Acorn Media, Amazon, Apple, Disney, Netflix, Sony and Warner Media.
Productions that benefit from UK tax relief for high-end TV productions contribute 0.5% of their production budget spent in the UK into the High-end TV Skills Fund. Following a review in March 2023, the cap for productions with a budget of less than £5 million per broadcast hour is now capped at [£xxx] and at [£xxx] for those with a budget higher than £5 million per broadcast hour. This represents an increase by CPI to both caps.