Former Amazon Studios Europe boss Georgia Brown will lead the BFI Skills Task Force

Former Amazon Studios Europe boss Georgia Brown will chair the BFI’s Skills Task Force, set up to tackle the huge skills shortages in the UK film and television sector over the next five years.

The task force has support from streamers such as Netflix, Prime Video, Apple TV+ and Disney, US studios such as NBCUniversal and Sony, UK broadcasters and others.

The taskforce, which emerged from last year’s BFI Skills Review, will initially focus on physical production skills in film, high-end TV, scripted comedy and low-cost drama, as well as unscripted and children’s drama.

Members of the Plus 20 membership panel are developing an action plan and contributing to a series of meetings to identify areas where industry can work with government to improve the current situation. Three focused work streams have been established: industry training and investment; improving access to the apprenticeship fee; and pathways into the continuing education and higher education industry.

Since the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic subsided, major US players have ordered and moved several productions to the UK to take advantage of a tax credit, lower prices and a strong skills sector. The will of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 is one of those that have moved from other territories to the UK in recent months.

This has created something of a skills crisis in the UK. When the BFI presented its Skill Review a year ago, it said £104m ($127m) and 20,000 full-time jobs in UK film and high-end television needed to be made available to the industry over the next three years to catch up. to keep up with the demand for projects.

“To take the step needed to close the skills gap and ensure our workforce can meet the demands of our growing industry, the Skills Review has made it abundantly clear that an industry-led response is fundamental,” says Ben Roberts, CEO of the BFI.

“We are therefore very pleased with the dedication and commitment of these key players in the industry and with a manager of Georgia’s caliber and experience at the helm, we believe the industry will continue to grow with key partners such as: [training body] ScreenSkills can come together to promote this work and help create lasting change.”

Brown said the task force will help “accelerate change by creating a robust framework to develop, support, train and nurture the next generation of talent.”

She is the former head of Amazon Studios Europe, which rapidly expanded the streamer’s offerings outside the US over a five-year period beginning in 2017, earning commissions such as Good omens, The griffin And Clarkson’s farm. Previous employers include BBC Studios and Fremantle.

The complete list of members of the task force