Screen Sectors’ Skills Task Force details strategy to deliver “radical transformation”

Georgia Brown

The Screen Sectors’ Skills Task Force, led by former Amazon Studios exec Georgia Brown, has unveiled an array of recommendations to deliver the “radical transformation” needed to address critical labour shortages in the UK production sector.

The Task Force, which was launched earlier this year and is backed by all the major UK broadcasters and streamers, said a new remit is needed for a pan-sector strategic skills body, while a reform of apprenticeship schemes is also required.

Other recommendations from the seven-month long enquiry with the UK industry includes strengthening partnerships with the education sector and developing a pan-sector funding model.

The Task Force was created with The British Film Institute to improve skills shortages laid out in a UK government report released last year.

Brown, who took up her role in March, said: “The film and TV industry is a dynamic part of the UK Creative Industries, and as an innovative, world-leading centre for content production, there remains a major growth opportunity in the decade ahead.

“However, to achieve this growth, we need a high-skilled workforce and despite significant commitment already being made, there remains a burgeoning disconnect between an increasingly strained workforce and the demand for skills that the industry makes of it.”

“To create the skilled, sustainable, diverse and inclusive workforce required for the future, we need radical transformation from the ground up,” she added, pointing to the three key proposals of strengthening partnerships, supporting sustainable growth and careers, and “to put work-based training at the heart of skills development”.

ScreenSkills added: “This report underlines the urgency of addressing the current and future skills challenges that face the screen industries. ScreenSkills is strongly committed to working towards a unified skills strategy, data and insight driven and built on partnership as the backbone for our creatively brilliant sector.

“We also recognise that, together with the broader sector, ScreenSkills needs to evolve so that we can all keep pace with the changing needs and demands of the talented workforce that we were created to support.

“Having worked constructively with the Taskforce and its members on this report, we look forward to continuing to do so as we work through the detailed recommendations.”

Brown is joined on the task force by more than 20 senior representatives from UK broadcasters BBC, ITV and Channel 4, as well as international studios and steamers such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney and NBCUniversal, and industry organisations Pact, ScreenSkills and the British Film Commission.