The BFI (British Film Institute) has announced £600,000 funding over three years to a Berkshire-based ‘BFI Skills Cluster’ to support skills development and training across the UK’s key production hubs, which includes Wokingham borough.
With the UK continuing to attract significant levels of film and high-end TV production spend – reaching £6.8 billion in 2025 – building and maintaining skilled and representative local crew bases across the country remains vital.
Resource Productions CIC, based in Slough, alongside University of Reading, supported by Amazon MGM Studios, the owners of Bray Film Studios, Shadowbox Studios in Shinfield, Berkshire Film Office – representing all six Berkshire councils), Reading’s Economic and Destination Agency, The Skills and Business Hub, Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce and Bedlam Film, have partnered for a further three years to deliver impactful training in the film sector.
Screen Berkshire is unique amongst the current seven BFI Skills Clusters in that it is focused around a single county at the heart of the Thames Valley, whilst the other six cover whole regions and nations.
Dean Horne, VP, global studio operations, Shadowbox Studios Shinfield said: “When we were building Shadowbox Studios Shinfield, we knew that we wanted our site to offer opportunity and inspiration to the next generation of crew.
“Our partnership with Screen Berkshire has been at the core of bringing that vision to life. We’re all very proud of what has been achieved so far, the continued BFI funding means that we can keep-up the momentum.”
The funding is part of a wider industry initiative by the BFI to support skills training and development across the UK as the film and TV production industry faces an acute skills shortage.
The scheme aims to create new opportunities for new entrants to the workforce, those from underrepresented backgrounds, individuals looking to upskill and over 50s jobseekers returning to work.
The Berkshire BFI Skills Cluster is led by social enterprise Resource Productions, with all stakeholders working closely together to identify skills shortages and coordinate training opportunities for production crew in the local area.
The aim is to build on the local skills base and help people find viable routes into the screen industry, whilst also providing career development support.
Sara Whybrew, director of skills and workforce development at BFI, said: “The first three years of the BFI Skills Clusters has shown us that supporting localised training and work based-learning opportunities is vital to building a workforce that better reflects local populations and ensuring our production hubs have ready access to the breadth of skills needed to support both domestic and inward-investment production.
“Earning and spending in the same place is good for local economies, and enabling more people to pursue, develop, and sustain a career in screen on their doorstep also makes the sector accessible to a greater diversity of people.”
www.screenberkshire.co.uk and register for support at skills@resource-productions.co.uk
