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Film: Skilled Workers

Asked by Sir Oliver DowdenConservativeDepartment for Culture, Media and SportTabled Answered 23 February 2026UIN 112931

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to help retain skilled workers in the film industry.

Answered by Ian Murray

The Creative Industries Sector Plan sets out how government will work with industry to develop a high quality and responsive training offer to meet the workforce requirements of the creative industries, including film as a frontier industry. This includes increasing the quantity of creative training pathways such as regional creative skills bootcamps - for example, the Screen Crafts & Digital Skills with a Camera pathway, which has recently been available in Yorkshire.

In September 2025, the government introduced creative Higher Technical Qualifications (HTQs) to support skills such as animation and audiovisual production, and shorter apprenticeships are now also possible for Screen and Audio Production Assistant apprentices. We are continuing to work with industry to support sector training pathways through a DCMS and Skills England led Creative Sector Skills Forum.

We also committed to increasing the resilience of the workforce, including creative freelancers, across the sector. DCMS will soon appoint a creative Freelance Champion, to advocate for the sector’s creative freelancers within government and be a member of the Creative Industries Council. We will also continue to support the industry’s work to deliver the Good Work Review action plan, which aims to strengthen job quality across the sector.

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