EXCLUSIVE: The previous 12 months might have been risky for the UK movie and TV trade with a whole lot of layoffs, however new analysis has discovered that agencies grew their workers bases.
From February 2024 to February 2025, there was a 13% rise in staff at UK administration firms of all sizes, in accordance with a report from expertise company recruiter Sumo shared solely with Deadline, with a mean eight hires per company resulting in a snug internet optimistic for the sector.
Sumo’s analysis discovered that small (lower than 10 workers) and medium-sized (10-40 workers) businesses grew at a far swifter tempo than the massive conventional gamers, each by round 16% to 17% in contrast with 2.3% for the massive retailers. Nonetheless, staff’ common tenure on the extra boutique businesses is simply two years in contrast with 4 on the larger outfits.
Whereas Sumo didn’t single out explicit businesses, it stated “a slight six-month contraction was famous amongst giant businesses, largely on account of well-known restructuring efforts.”
“There stays a transparent distinction in worker tenure between small/medium businesses and bigger businesses,” added Sumo’s report. “Small-to-medium sized businesses ought to concentrate on retention methods to compete with the tenure seen at bigger companies.”
Deadline has reported often on job strikes throughout the bustling UK agenting scene, with a good bit of motion round established gamers like Curtis Brown, United Brokers, InterTalent, MVE and YMU. Others like Outreach Expertise Group opened in the States.
Sumo pointed to the rising digital agent house as a specific space of workers development. Businesses specializing in digital grew workers base by round 15%, which was double unscripted and quadruple scripted. Though they’ve slower development, Sumo famous that scripted businesses have a lot “stronger stability,” with workers staying on common for a prolonged six years.
The report comes following a troublesome yr for the normal UK movie and TV trade, with a whole lot of layoffs reported at broadcasters and manufacturing firms. Work has been more durable to come back by as older genres like mid-range factual are phased out and American consumers row again on big-budget tasks. Broadcasting union Bectu’s newest worker survey discovered almost half of respondents had been out of labor and 38% deliberate to depart the movie and TV trade within the subsequent 5 years.
