Talent is the lifeblood of the UK’s media industry – and we must ensure that we are attracting the brightest and best diverse young people to enter and choose a long term career in our industry. But we know there are barriers to achieving this. And we need your help to identify some of the educational challenges that need to be addressed in the future, through our UK Education Survey 2022.
This survey, and your responses, will directly inform a future report to help identify and address barriers and starting a more transparent conversation about what our industry requires to enter our sector.
The Education Challenges
There is currently a lack of diverse talent entering the workforce, as well as simultaneously the workforce aging and being overwhelmingly white and male.
In addition to this, university courses, which have traditionally produced the industry’s technical and engineering talent, are struggling to recruit students and therefore, many of these courses are closing rapidly.
In conjunction with this, it is also known that universities are a barrier to students with diverse characteristics, when the industry so desperately needs diverse talent.
How can you help?
As a sector we need to be much more open and clearer with our communication to young people about the skillsets we would like them to have when they enter the industry, as well as what qualifications we, as the industry, think are essential. That’s why we’re undertaking
Examples of questions that we want to address in this survey are:
- Do you take young people on after school and train them from the outset?
- If yes, how do young people know this and where do they go to find out that your company welcomes young and diverse talent after school?
- Do they need a degree? If so, what kind of degree? What subject? Does it matter?
- Do they need some other qualification completely?
Until we understand and we clarify for young people that we need their talent and that we accept people from all pathways of educational experiences and qualifications, we are going to continue to struggle to attract talent.
Rise is working with young people aged 9 through to 18 years old to to inspire, educate and inform them about pathways and opportunities in the industry. But the current roadmap post 18 is foggy at best and it is critical that we unravel this information to ensure this critical work is not lost when the young people look for their next steps after leaving school.
What will happen with the information?
This survey will feed into a report that will act as a key steppingstone to break down these barriers and start a more transparent conversation about what our industry requires to enter our sector.
It will also support parents and teachers to have the most accurate information and data on where to send their children / students once they leave school.
Take the survey
It’s quick easy to take this survey, which should only take a couple of minutes of your time – and your responses will make a real difference to our work. So grab a cuppa and take the survey by clicking here by 3 April 2022.