Looking ahead to 2025 in the Nations

We spoke to members of the ScreenSkills team across the Nations to find out what they're looking forward to in the year to come. Kate Efomi, Mairead Kelly and Becs Meredith, training liaison managers for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales share their thoughts.

Image: Mairead Kelly (C), with ScreenSkills colleagues Kate Efomi (L) and Becs Meredith (R)

Kate Efomi - Scotland

I’m really looking forward to seeing what 2025 brings to Scotland. The last couple of years have been incredibly tough for industry here, especially in unscripted television which is thankfully now starting to show tentative green shoots of revival. It was great to run The Big Connection networking event last year which was a partnership with the Royal Television Society. It was really heartening to hear of experienced unscripted professionals making new connections with Scotland-based production companies and even getting work as a result. I’m really looking forward to doing another networking event this year with RTS for scripted freelancers and Scotland-based production companies. Keep an eye on our website and newsletters!

It’s always at this time of year that I get a lot of queries from freelancers and brilliant crew and production professionals who are thinking about the year ahead. People are applying for bursaries, looking at training they could do, how they can diversify their skills - there are new opportunities being added every week on our website so I would really encourage people to keep checking screenskills.com to see if there’s something that attracts their attention for their own personal career journey. People are finding training that’s specific to their role or department but we also have brilliant CV sessions and courses like leadership and management that can really help underpin people’s existing expertise.

Meanwhile, I’m really looking forward to meeting our new cohort of Trainee Finder trainees who start with us in April and will be available for placements on HETV productions, films and children’s live action TV. We always have such a great bunch in Scotland (well – everywhere really) and they are very in demand. I’ve just been updating my productions-in-Scotland-in-2025 calendar and we have a healthy number of productions already crewing up and getting in touch with us about TF trainees, Make a Move support, Leaders of Tomorrow, Script Editors, APOCs, 2nd ADs. It’s great to hear of new titles coming to Scotland and also returning shows like Shetland and the wonderful Dinosaur. I’m also slightly excited that the High-end TV Skills Fund is also supporting Richard Gadd’s new show, Half Man, from Mam Tor Productions – but I’m trying not to be too stalker-y about that.

And I look forward to getting out and about and meeting our beneficiaries and the brilliant productions who give them opportunities. I already have a few set visits in the diary and I’m going to be popping in to see our Steadicam Training in action soon – that’s being delivered by the Guild of British Camera Technicians and Tiffen and has been incredibly popular. That one was a commission from our HETV Scotland Working Group who agreed that we need more Steadicam expertise in Scotland and it’s a pleasure to be able to facilitate and meet that need.

And finally, the ScreenSkills Animation Skills Fund is sponsoring and attending Move Summit – Scotland’s animation festival and conference in Edinburgh in February and the Film Skills Fund will be holding a networking breakfast and a Fireside Chat with some of Scotland’s most prolific film producers at the Glasgow Film Festival Industry Week in March. 

So it’s going to be a busy year for ScreenSkills in Scotland! 

Kate Efomi stands behind a desk in front of a ScreenSkills logo banner talking to someone at the BAFTA Guru live event in Scotland
Image: Kate Efomi at BAFTA Guru Live in Scotland

Mairead Kelly – Northern Ireland

The first part of 2025 will be particularly busy in Northern Ireland with HETV training. In the early part of the year we’ll have; Steadicam, Grips, VFX and Clearance training so there’s lots on offer. Plus, a 1st Assistant Director training programme with the possibility of a 17-week long funded placement which is a huge opportunity and I’m really excited to see the impact of that investment.

It was a great sign of the health of the industry here to see new production companies opening in Northern Ireland last year such as Hot Sauce Pictures, set up by the writers of Blue Lights and other companies opening a base in Northern Ireland, like Conker Pictures. I’m really excited to see the development of these companies in 2025.  

In terms of Unscripted, as everyone knows 2024 was a really tough year and Northern Ireland was no different but there are signs of the industry recovering. So I’m looking forward and hoping that will continue in 2025. There is lots of brilliant Unscripted training coming up this year, one opportunity that I’m particularly excited about is the Edit Producing shadow placements because the Northern Ireland Unscripted working group highlighted a need for training and skills development in edit producing so I know it’ll be particularly relevant here.

Finally across film it’s great to see Kneecap’s award-winning run continue in 2025. The film contributed to the ScreenSkills Film Skills Fund and has been nominated for awards at the BAFTAs and Oscars. It’s brilliant to see Northern Ireland filmmaking talent recognised on the biggest global stages. 

The three-piece band Kneecap lie on the floor topless at the end of a big night
Image: Kneecap (c) Curzon/BFI

Becs Meredith – Wales

With 2025 now underway, I'm really looking forward to another busy year for ScreenSkills in Wales, celebrating our many partnerships, supporting our brilliant crew, and creating new opportunities to develop people in Wales for the future. During the last few weeks of 2024, I took the opportunity to travel across Wales once more, meeting as many production companies in person as possible.

This was really useful in understanding the latest challenges facing companies and individuals in our industry and is helping me as I work to support our wonderful Wales Working Group of industry professionals to plan for how best we can invest in Wales over the coming year. The past 12 months have been busy for high-end TV and film in Wales and I have had the pleasure to work with many productions and I'm already working with many more who are in production this year and next.

Together, through the HETV Skills Fund and Film Skills Fund, we are creating opportunities for new entrants to the industry. Those who are ready to step up and especially those who are benefiting from our HETV Wales HOD scheme, which has already seen nine talented crew members step up to HOD for the very first time on major productions. This has been a really popular inititiave for us, which was match funded in the first year via the Creative Skills Fund. And I am really excited to see what the future holds for everyone who has participated.

In unscripted TV, this has been a challenging time for Wales as we know, but we have been able to create training for casting researchers, development teams, shooting APs and PDs and lots more. As we look ahead, we continue to support individuals who are participating in our outside broadcast assistant technical manager programme. And don't forget the series producer programme will open for application soon for its seventh cohort.

We are recruiting right now for edit producing skills for future series producers and applications will soon also open for training for data wranglers, development researchers and development APs too.

Finally, I want to also mention the importance of bursaries for people in Wales who may be experiencing financial difficulties. If these difficulties are creating barriers to you getting on in your career, our bursary scheme may be able to help. Whether this is for training, transport and travel, childcare, equipment or another expense that you just cannot meet at the moment, I would encourage you to take a look at the criteria on our website and see if we can help. As always, having the chance to work with some wonderful people right across Wales really makes my job an enjoyable one. Thanks to everyone who has supported us and me this past year. I can't wait to work with you again in the coming months.

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