by Amanda Dahl, Director at AWIC
The film and television industry has one of the most mobile workforces in the country.
There are around 400 ‘permanent’ (i.e. registered) companies in the UK film industry. This figure varies depending on the number of productions being worked on at any one time. Of the companies existing today, we can say approximately 43% are production, 13% are distribution and the remaining 44% are exhibition companies. (Source: Skillset)
In a survey of workers in the film/tv industry by Skillset, almost all (91%) of the sample were freelance; just under half (48%) of the survey sample had been employed on a fixed-term contract i.e. for a fixed number of hours, days or weeks, over one in five (22%) had an open-ended weekly contract and a further 9% had been employed as dailies. The remaining 9% were permanent employees. (Source: http://publications.skillset.org/index.php?id=9&page=10)
The transient and mobile nature of the work force in film and television means that production companies have challenges when it comes to providing IT for staff that’s only around for a few weeks or months at a time.
