Who works in Television?
TV, like the rest of the creative media industry, is characterised by a much higher proportion of freelance and short-term contract working than the economy as a whole.
Production areas are likely to have anything up to six in ten people in that category. There are fewer freelancers in cable and satellite broadcasting, and some skills areas, for example broadcast technology, IT and journalism.
Just under two thirds of the TV industry (62%) is based in London, but there are creative clusters in cities around the UK. The north west is the second largest centre of activity, with 8% of the workforce, but there are both broadcasting and production companies in Glasgow, Cardiff, Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool, amongst others.
Women are well represented in the TV industry, with 41% female workers compared with 49% in the creative media industry as a whole although the overall representation of women in the TV workforce has declined year on year from 49% in 2004.
People from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds make up 9% of the TV industry's workforce which is slightly more than across the creative media workforce as a whole. However, given that so many companies are based in London and other cities, these figures are fairly low.
Similarly, the percentage of people with disabilities in the workforce is relatively low. 4% of individuals working in the TV industry consider themselves to be disabled as defined by the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), compared with 9% in the
wider creative media workforce.
The TV industry is committed to improving the overall diversity of its workforce over the next few years.
For more information on our research work, please visit Skillset's Research pages.