Building your skills
ScreenSkills offers a range of training courses and workshops for those looking to develop and enhance their skills. Some are free for participants, others are subsidised. You can find them in Training, events and opportunities. Our training is targeted to address skills priorities identified in the industries through our Skills Forecasting Service.
Building your knowledge
On the ScreenSkills website you can find training resources, which cover different sectors and specialisms, together with e-learning modules and on-demand recordings of previous workshops and webinars. It’s a great resource when you need to know more about a topic quickly.
Bursaries
A ScreenSkills bursary is a cash grant designed to remove some of the practical barriers to making progress in the screen industries. Bursaries pay for training or other costs associated with skills development. We provide bursaries to help ensure the screen industries have access now, and in the future, to the skills and talent needed for continued success.
You can apply for money to pay for most things that relate to training, work and work-related activities, including training fees, accommodation, care, disability access costs, driving lessons, equipment, software and travel.
We aim to offer funding wherever possible, but we cannot promise that all applications will be successful due to limited funding and skills shortage priorities.
Find out more about our ScreenSkills bursaries.
Further sector organisations that work on your behalf
For more information about what a union can offer you, visit joining a union or the Trades Union Congress.
Here are some of the most prominent unions and trade bodies in the screen industries:
There are also many trade bodies and charities that support the screen and creative sector, some cover a wide range of the sector and some are sector or department specific.
- ScreenSkills careers and courses information
- NextGen Skills Academy - courses and apprenticeships
- Access VFX - helping people get into the VFX, animation and games industries
- Show Me The Animation - online magazine with information on events and opportunities
- Bectu VFX branch
- ScreenSkills careers and courses information
- BAFTA Games Guru
- Ukie - The UK Interactive Entertainment trade body
- Tiga - The Interactive Games Association
- NextGen Skills Academy - courses and apprenticeships:
- Ukie and Nesta UK GamesMap - shows games companies across the UK
- Gamasutra/The Game Career Guide
- ScreenSkills careers and courses information
- Pixar in a Box - where Pixar artists explain how they make their animations
- NextGen Skills Academy - Courses and apprenticeships
- Animation UK - part of the UK Screen Alliance, represents the animation industry
- Show Me The Animation - online magazine with information on events and opportunities
- Children’s Media Conference - UK meet-up for everyone involved in creating content for kids
- ScreenSkills careers and courses information
- British Film Commission
- British Film Institute (BFI)
- Bectu, the media and entertainment union
- Royal Television Society
For a career in sales, marketing and distribution:
- Independent Cinema Office - UK body supporting independent cinemas and film festivals
- Film Export UK - trade body for companies with UK offices that sell independent feature films internationally
- Film Distributors’ Association - trade body of film distributors
- ScreenSkills information on careers and courses
- BAFTA Guru - career advice for games, film and television
- BBC Academy - training and development for the BBC and wider industry
- Royal Television Society - bursaries, jobs and training schemes in the TV industry
- Bectu - the media and entertainment union
- Association of Camera Operators (ACO)
- Assistant Directors Association (ADA)
- Association of Motion Picture Sound (AMPS)
- Advertising Producers Association (APA)
- British Film Designers Guild (BFDG)
- British Society of Cinematographers (BSC)
- Film Distributors Association (FDA)
- Guild of British Camera Technicians (GBCT)
- Guild of British Film and Television Editors (GBFTE)
- Guild of Television Camera Professionals
- Institute of Professional Sound (IPS)
- Production Guild UK
- Screen Craft Rights
- Writers Guild of Great Britain (WGGB)
Freelance Toolkit third edition - written by Alison Grade, author of The Freelance Bible.