Rise Up Academy

The broadcast media technology industry is facing a severe skills shortage and is currently not able to recruit the engineering and technical talent it needs. BT Sport, ITV, Discovery, Sky, Gravity Media, dB Broadcast and BBCStudioworks are amongst many broadcast companies who clearly state they need more technical and engineering talent.

Rise’s recent survey, in partnership with the IABM, showed that males occupy more C-level positions, women earn significantly less money and the industry is 83% white.

Furthermore, there is a declining number of students applying for Media Technology courses at University, fewer apprenticeship programmes and a lack of diverse talent coming through the pipeline.

Rise and its industry partners want to change this.

What is the Rise Up Academy?

The Rise Up Academy is an outreach programme delivering broadcast engineering and technical workshops to primary and secondary school children aged 9 through to 18 years old.

It’s intention is to inspire, educate and inform children and young adults about the pathways and career opportunities available to them within the broadcast technology industry.

Funded by BT Sport, ITV and Discovery, the programme delivers hands-on workshops where the children build a 4 camera studio and gallery, as well have access to webinars from multiple partners across the sector. In addition to this the Academy also provides a mentoring programme to 16-18 year olds and careers fairs.

The Academy is currently working with University Technical Colleges across England, from Hull through to Portsmouth, as well as primary schools geographically located in these areas.

The Academy’s ambition to ensure there is a more diverse workforce entering the industry at either 18 or 21 years old.

For more information, please contact Carrie Wootten at carrie@risewib.com.