IT has been billed as the “largest skills survey of individuals working across the [UK’s] TV industry”, comprising 1,100 respondents and providing “real insight into the recruitment, working patterns, training needs, pay, and socio economic backgrounds of those working in the sector”.
Creative Skillset is the sector skills body (part-funded by the sector and part-funded by government) for the ‘creative industries’, such as broadcasting and games.
In a wide-ranging survey, taking in the whole gamut of the creative industries, among the findings regarding television, specifically, it was found that, for instance, over half of respondents (54 per cent) found their current job through ‘informal recruitment methods’.
Other findings include:
* 46 per cent have done unpaid work at some point in their career;
* Two per cent of the TV workforce came through an apprenticeship route;
* Half of the respondents had received training in the 12 months prior to survey (a decrease on the 58 per cent in 2010);
* Three quarters (75 per cent) of freelancers experienced ‘barriers to training’, compared to 55 per cent of permanent employees;
* The proportion of people with disabilities in the creative media workforce has remained static for ten years – at around five per cent, against 11 per cent across wider working population in the UK;
* 74 per cent of the TV workforce are now graduates;
* Nearly half (45 per cent) of these graduates hold a creative/media degree;
* 15 per cent of respondents attended an independent/fee-paying school (compared to seven per cent in the UK working population); and
* Eight per cent of the TV workforce identified themselves as lesbian, gay or bisexual (versus six per cent for the UK population).
Source: The Creative Media Workforce Survey 2014 Summary Report, publ by Creative Skillset, May 19 2015.
