Skillset Film Futures is a bursary scheme aimed at helping the film workforce improve their skills on short courses in areas identified by the industry as a priority.

Running since 2004, the scheme was relaunched last year to cover training in a wider variety of areas - currently business skills, technical and craft skills and health and safety - and with a simplified application process. There are now no fixed deadlines, so individuals can apply at any time up to five days before their course begins.

Bursaries are available to both freelances (up to £800) and permanent employees (up to £500) with a minimum of two years' professional experience in the industry and cover a proportion of fees, travel and accommodation costs.

Emmet Cahill is one of a growing list of individuals to benefit from the scheme.

Cahill is retraining as a grip after four years in the industry as a runner and 3rd assistant director. Currently working towards his NVQ Level 2, he realised he could increase his employability by turning his life-long love of diving into a marketable asset.

The recently introduced HSE Scuba qualification is a requirement for any commercial diving activity in the UK. In the film industry the qualification is a must-have for all members of stunt or camera teams working underwater.

"Basically I saw a hole in the market," explains Cahill. "Although lots of grips used to do this type of work, very few of them have the new qualification. I started diving when I was twelve, so I had lots of experience. But I thought if I want to start getting some work I'll have to get qualified."

He found a course at the Puffin Dive Centre in Oban on the west coast of Scotland which, with accommodation and travel, would have cost him £2,400. Hearing about the Skillset Film Futures bursary scheme, he applied for a grant.

"The course was due to start in October and it was already late September," he says. "But luckily we went through the whole procedure very quickly." He was awarded the full freelance bursary of £800.

Depending on experience, the HSE Scuba course lasts between two to four weeks and involves a combination of academic and underwater sessions. Successful completion requires a minimum of 75 dives. "It's pretty intensive. You're at it for up to 12 hours a day and then you've got three hours of coursework in the evening." Elements of the programme include air diving and decompression theory, diving physics, rigging and oxygen administration as well as first aid at work, and HSE and DWR regulations.

With the course behind him, Cahill is already finding his new-found skills are in demand. Most memorably he worked on the last James Bond outing, Casino Royale, helping to set up shots for a scene where a building in Venice collapses into a canal. The experience, he says, was "the biggest funfair ride I've ever been on in my life".

Next up is the Harry Houdini biopic Death Defying Acts, where Cahill will be one of the team ensuring that all the spills, if not all the thrills, are purely for the screen.

"I can't thank Skillset enough," he says. "They helped me all the way."