Up to 13,000 new jobs could be created in Hertfordshire’s booming film and TV sector, helping young people into long-term employment as well as reskilling those whose jobs have been impacted by COVID-19.

Delegates at Hertfordshire Local Enterprise’s Annual Conference –Spotlight on Film and TV - heard that the county was at the epicentre of the growth in the TV and film industry, stimulated by recent interest in streaming services, and its rapid expansion could see the sector’s employment more than treble over the next decade.

Neil Hayes, CEO, Hertfordshire LEP, said: “We are at the fulcrum of the potential growth in the film and TV industry. Our role is to work with our LEP partners to make sure we have a broader throughput of businesses, provide the comprehensive range of real skills that the industry needs and provide a platform for the scale of growth that's required.”

The LEP’s Annual conference was broadcast live from Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden and brought together senior leaders and industry figures from Hertfordshire, Hollywood and beyond to identify how best to stimulate future investment, drive local job creation and spearhead skills development.

Its first panel discussion ‘Boomtime for Hertfordshire’ focused on the recent scale of investment into the film and TV industry and featured. Dan Dark, OBE, Executive Vice President, Warner Bros. worldwide studio operations; Caroline Cooper, COO, Sky Studios; Dean Russell MP for Watford; Deirdre Wells OBE, CEO, Visit Herts and Go To Places; Leader, Hertsmere Borough Council and David Conway, Chief Financial and Operations Officer, ITN.

The second panel discussion ‘Mind the Skills Gap’ brought together educators from across the Higher and Further Education sectors to debate the huge range of skills required to support the industry and how local people can benefit. It featured Chris Mitchell, Principal of Elstree Screen Arts Academy, Emily Stillman, Senior Vice President, Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, Adrian Hawkins OBE, Chair, Skills Advisory Panel, Hertfordshire LEP; Cllr Morris Bright MBE, Chair, Board of Directors, Elstree Studios; Prof. Julie Newlan MBE, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Business and International Development, University of Hertfordshire; Phil Healey, Dean, School of Creative Arts, University of Hertfordshire, and Gill Worgan, Principal and Chief Executive, West Herts College.

The conference aimed to put the spotlight firmly on the county’s film and TV sector which is fast becoming the new ‘Hollywood’, and is part of Hertfordshire LEP’s sector focus in its Economic Recovery Plan. The LEP recently commissioned an independent report into the value of the industry and is building an industry-led taskforce to develop an Action Plan which aims to capitalise on recent investment successes, helping to identify what will be needed to enable the industry to grow sustainably as well as leverage its economic, social, and environmental value.

Hertfordshire is already a global leader in the industry and its creative sector has rapidly expanded in the past 12 months with:

• Hollywood’s Sunset Studios choosing to locate its new £700m base in Broxbourne, creating over 4,500 permanent jobs with an estimated contribution of £300m p/a to the local economy;
• Sky Studios Elstree expected to generate an additional £3 billion of production investment over the first five years of operation, alone, across 13 soundstages. It also aims to be the world’s most sustainable film and TV studio and will create over 2,000 jobs locally;
• Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden recently opening three new sound stages providing 83,000 sq. ft. of additional production space, including a state-of-the-art Virtual Production stage. This investment brings the Studio’s total production space to over 1 million sq. ft. and the total sound stages to 20, offering one of the largest production facilities in the UK.

This expansion has strongly established Hertfordshire as a key location for film and TV production in the UK, cementing its reputation as the ‘British Hollywood’. The county is also a prime destination for on-location filming with screen tourism a key focus for Visit Herts recovery strategy.

Opening the conference, Mark Bretton, Chair, Hertfordshire LEP and the LEP Network, said: “Hertfordshire has witnessed substantial inward investment commitments recently in the film and TV sector. This major sector focus is a key element of LEPs’ evolving national role as catalysts to deliver the Plan for Growth. We've got a great platform, which we must leverage. Nowhere else do we have this unique partnership with local government, higher and further education, third sector and social enterprise which we can use to help super-charge the UK’s bounce-back, partnering with industry to ensure the industry’s ongoing success and provide real opportunities for local people.”

The debates focused not just on studio expansion, skills shortages, and employment opportunities, but also on supporting the industry’s ‘long tail’ which includes supply chains, the wider business network and tourism potential.

Neil Hayes, CEO, Hertfordshire LEP, said: “The employment levels are very intense and very dense in relation to southwest Hertfordshire; we've estimated that around 3,300 are employed in the sector at this point in time.

"If we are looking to studio expansion, we could see anywhere between six and 13,000 additional jobs, supporting that sector.

“There is a plethora of jobs in screen. I think sometimes we have this misconception that it is a very narrow bandwidth in terms of the jobs that are required in film and TV industry. But I think the real opportunity we have in Hertfordshire is where we're trying to find jobs for all ages, all skills, and particularly in areas where we're transitioning people from parts of the economy that have been decreasing. There are opportunities for them to find re-training and new opportunities within the wider screen industry.”

Dean Russell MP for Watford said: “There's a massive, long tail here for the production companies. We've got such an economic opportunity here to build this industry - not just in producing content, but really inspiring young people to get into this industry and learning skills from carpentry to digital artistry. I think if we can harness this even more and use Hertfordshire as a really great pilot, we will be the world leader and a place which will inspire new generations to be brilliant storytellers and craftspeople to make things that entertain the world.”

Deirdre Wells OBE, CEO, Visit Herts and Go To Places explained the industry’s wider benefits for the tourism and leisure industries. “I think to be effectively the Hollywood of the UK is such a gift. And I think we've only scratched the surface of the opportunities here. A third of all our international visitors will say their main motivation for coming was around what they saw on screen, so if you look at the 2.4 billion that tourists spend in in Hertfordshire, a lot of it will be thanks to the wider film offer that we have.”

Dan Dark OBE, Executive Vice President, Warner Bros. worldwide studio operations, told the conference that continued economic success was dependent on the UK’s ongoing support for the industry.

“I think one of the things that will be really important for the audience to understand is film and television production is a global industry that can go anywhere. It can lift and shift at a moment's notice. So, we have to continue to make it easy for productions to operate here in the UK and continue to ensure that it's cost effective. If we don't, they'll go. Now, from a Warner Bros.’ perspective, we're committed to be here, we absolutely know it works here, but there's a much bigger industry interest outside and we have to ensure that we continue to be cost effective, and really make it easy for productions to come to us.”

After an audience poll revealed 62% of the audience believed skills shortages would be the biggest challenge, panellists focused on methods of getting greater numbers of skilled, experienced staff into the industry.

David Conway, Chief Financial and Operations Officer, ITN , said: “There’ a real skill shortage. We are seeing a lot of inward investment into the UK from the streamers and the big Hollywood studios, but there aren’t necessarily sufficient trained people who are ’ oven ready’ to service this demand. Some fantastic talent is emerging from our media colleges around the UK, but there is a gap in their training and experience versus what production teams require. The industry needs to close this cap so that we can soak up the inward investment and avoid it going elsewhere.”

Cllr Morris Bright MBE, Chair, Board of Directors, Elstree Studios agreed that it was important to develop ways of increasing employment opportunities across the board, and Caroline Cooper, COO, Sky Studios, explained how the industry was focusing on improving diversity to help bring more young people into the industry.

She said: “We have set some really stretching targets for ourselves both in our workplace but also on screen. By 2025, we want 20% of people who work at Sky to be from a Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic background. Diversity is at the very, very top of our list when we’re thinking about what we can offer and how we can collaborate with others to bring young people into the industry.”

Emily Stillman, Senior Vice President, Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, explained Warner Bros. is now offering childcare facilities to help recruit and retain more women in the industry and is looking at other ways to increase diversity in its workforce.

“We need more people right now, so this is a chance for us to break down barriers and open up our sector, moving away from what traditionally was quite a closed industry, whether it's looking at intersectionality, or ensuring inclusivity. It’s about creating an industry that can open up to all different types of people and making it a better place to be in and a better place to work.”

Panellists in the event’s ‘Mind the Skills Gap’ debate agreed that a key issue was ensuring trained students gained sufficient industry experience to secure employment opportunities.

Chris Mitchell, Principal of Elstree Screen Arts Academy said he wanted to see more creativity in ‘joining the dots’ between industry and education to make sure his ‘oven-ready’ students could get employment opportunities.

“It’s clear the prospects are massive. And I think that is not lost on young people. There's no shortage of passion amongst the young people I work with. They're unbelievably driven, and they're very, very knowledgeable, about what opportunities there are. And there is no shortage of authentic intention and desire to get this pipeline working and get young people into the industry from the speakers I have heard here today. But I just think what we’ve really got to do is increase the ease of access about how we align young people with the pipeline and get schools working more directly and more collaboratively with industry.”

Prof. Julie Newlan MBE, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Business and International Development, University of Hertfordshire, said the university had award-winning courses to support young people into work and Gill Worgan, Principal and Chief Executive, West Herts College, agreed that the very multitude of jobs in an industry which was ever-changing meant the relationship between the education providers and the employers was critical.

“This sector is full of people delivering all different types of skills across a multitude of jobs, and to really understand what those skills are in a place like this - ever changing as well as never changing - you have to have constant open dialogue with the people who are requiring those skills.”

Adrian Hawkins OBE, Chair, Skills Advisory Panel, Hertfordshire LEP explained the LEP was already working to encourage young people into the sector, including its Generation Hitchin event the previous day which matched young people with potential employers, and its Hertfordshire Opportunities Portal (HOP), a website which helps students explore career opportunities.

“Lights, camera, action, I guess will be a likely common phrase that we will hear more often in Hertfordshire as the years roll forward. Strong relationships are already being formed across the industry and education sectors to respond to the requirements of the industry, and this includes encouraging more young people to consider opportunities within film and TV across our country, and also encouraging older individuals to pivot an array of existing skills and qualifications like hairdressing to catering, set design, construction and lighting to reflect the opportunities in the sector.

“However, it will require government to provide the commitment and the right level of funding to the Hertfordshire LEP to ensure that the coordination of the skills and business landscape can continue to develop.”

Hertfordshire's film industry has just received an additional boost from the Community Renewal Fund after a successful joint bid from the LEP and Hertfordshire County Council secured £3.26m funding for five community projects across different sectors.