FIRESIDE CHAT INDUSTRY
DEF: What role has mentorship played in your own career journey, and what role do you think it can play in shaping the future of the industry? LM: Mentorship, coaching and simply reaching out to others for support is so important in every career, and screen is absolutely a team sport. People will have many mentors over a career – formal and informal. I certainly have had many different people who have both challenged and encouraged me to help shape my own career, style and approach. I believe in the power of mentorship – at my previous company, Tin Roof Media, I championed setting up a group-wide mentorship scheme across Outline Productions and Blink Films – and we used the free downloadable toolkit from ScreenSkills, which is a really empowering resource for a small indie. Coaching, which is different and permits the person being coached to formulate their own direction, is very valuable. ScreenSkills’ Unscripted TV Fund now delivers a substantial programme, with freelancers able to apply for free coaching ranging from one-offs to six- month programmes. The feedback from this can be transformational. Building a career in the screen industries is a rewarding and often very challenging thing. So whether you seek out an official mentor, like the ones we offer with HETV and Film Skills Funds, Make A Move or Leaders of Tomorrow programmes, or just a few words of encouragement from a trainer on a course – the more people feel it’s OK to ask for support or show vulnerability, the more room for personal and professional growth there is. DEF: ScreenSkills plays a pivotal role in shaping and nurturing the UK’s screen talent pipeline. What are the most urgent skills gaps today, and how can they best be addressed? LM: I’m proud that ScreenSkills has such reach: last year we directly supported nearly 30,000 beneficiaries who used our programmes, training, bursaries and e-learning, and 67% of them were outside London. That makes our national role really important.
IN YOUR CORNER ScreenSkills was able to directly support nearly 30,000 beneficiaries last year
feedback behaviours and so on. And related to this, but relevant to the whole workforce, is learning to tackle bullying and harassment. That’s why this is one of the core online modules of our free ScreenSkills Training Passport. We’re on target to see 12,000 people across the industry complete their passports this year. That means thousands of people with the vocabulary and understanding that is needed to tackle and deal with challenging situations. We’re offering regular AI webinars, which have seen huge demand and hundreds of people attending them to start to demystify the area, which many freelancers in particular are looking for help with. DEF: The industry talks a lot about ’breaking in’, but being able to sustain a long-term career can be just as challenging. How can the sector support professionals not just at the entry level but throughout their careers? LM: It’s like a leaky bucket. There is no point pouring water in if it just comes out of a hole in the bottom. Clearly, it’s important to fix the bucket
In terms of skills needs, ScreenSkills has commissioned two new pieces of research to come out early 2026 and offer real, granular-level information for the industry to plan around. Our research work will highlight skills gaps and shortages both UK wide and with regional variations. The most urgent skills needs now, and for the future, continue to be in building management, project management and strong leadership skills, as well as support around artificial intelligence. Working in the screen industries is a team activity and running an effective team doesn’t happen by magic. Getting training and feedback can help individuals build their skillsets and not just do what they have observed others doing. From our last HETV skills gaps report, specific needs were business and management skills, production accountants and digital skills. And certainly, when you look at the Creative PEC digital research, it reiterated what we’d learned: building digital skills across the sector is crucial. Leadership and management skills – that’s how you create systemic change. Embedding positive recruitment culture into the industry, changing listening and
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