British Production Industry Aims to Bulk Up and Diversify Workforce Post-Strikes

variety.com:

Ben Croll Following on the heels of a 2022 U.K. ScreenSkills report, the British production industry has sought to bulk up, responding to an urgent decree that urged local players to ready 21,000 new technicians for 2025.

Those suggestions have grown ever the more imperative now that the recent stoppage waylaid a sizable chunk of the local workforce. “[Once the strike ended] it was time for celebration — for a minute,” says Production Guild of Great Britain chair Bianca Gavin. “And then there’s a real challenge to make sure that we can service these productions [because] we have a long way to grow, to fulfill our potential.” On that front, expanding accessibility and workforce diversity initiatives should play a salutary role, creating new opportunities for skilled and promising practitioners. “We need to open up, to allow more people into the industry,” says Gavin. “Our industry skills gap shows that we cannot afford to lose any talents, so we have to find ways to support them, to set them up for success.” Inclusion facilitator Bridge06 is one organization leading that charge.

Touting the benefits of deaf, disabled and neurodivergent talent, and reaping industry expertise of co-founders’ Sara Johnson and Julie Fernandez — who, respectively, bring production experience from Sky, Fox and Keshet and on-camera turns in series like “The Office” — Bridge06 offers sourcing, training and support for productions interested in improving their crews with the help of on set access coordinators. “We have an untapped workforce who are not used to being treated as best they would wish,” says Johnson. “[And to counter that,] we offer a really affordable role that projects can implement at the beginning of production, or even earlier,.