Securing skills for growth in the UK Screen Industries

Director of External Affairs, WorldSkills UK

Emma leads on championing future skills needs in the UK, ensuring that WorldSkills UK is actively engaged in the discussions, and providing unique insights into how the organisation and sector can help meet these needs. She is also responsible for using diagnostic research and insights along with impactful strategic partnerships to increase the profile of our work and drive change in our programmes to ensure they are fit for purpose. Emma joined WorldSkills UK in 2018 to lead the organisation’s thought leadership programme, ensuring the insights from competition-based skills programmes and international benchmarking could be shared to inform skills policy and practice across the UK. Before that Emma worked at the CBI as Chief of Staff and across a range of policy teams and prior to that in the policy development team at Universities UK.

Partnership Development and Innovation Coordinator, Coleg y Cymoedd 

Alistair has an extensive background in both the creative and educational sectors. Currently, he holds dual roles at Coleg y Cymoedd: he is the Course Leader for the BA Hons TV and Film Prop Making, a course validated by the University of South Wales, and he also serves as the Partnership Development and Innovation Coordinator. This latter role allows him to work across all faculties at Coleg y Cymoedd, fostering industrial collaborations, projects, and partnerships.

Prior to full-time lecturing, Alistair had successful creative roles in several product design consultancies and in-house manufacturing companies. Alistair has an MSc Advanced Product Design and has over 25 years of design and teaching experience. During this period there he has successfully worked as part of multi-functional teams to enable delivery of national standards of curriculum and creative events in the education sector.

Director, Work Advance

Heather is Director of Work Advance, where she provides research and advisory support with a particular focus on inclusive growth; industrial strategy; work and skills; diversity and inclusion. She was previously Interim Director and Deputy Director of the Work Foundation (part of Lancaster University) and Head of Public Policy for Experian PLC. She has nearly two decades of experience in advising Government including the Cabinet Office, MHCLG, BEIS, DWP, HCA and the Welsh Assembly; Local Authorities across the UK, Industry bodies, Skills bodies, think tanks and major corporates. This has included high profile projects for Government, such as the Cabinet Office’s review of Local Economic Resilience and CLG’s State of the English Cities report.

Tim Weiss, Director of Vocational Skills

Tim Weiss is responsible for our work endorsing HE and FE courses and developing new apprenticeship standards and qualifications to help give the best preparation to those looking to enter the screen industries. Tim has worked for over 20 years in education and qualifications, most recently as the director at the Education and Training Foundation heading up accreditation and professional membership for FE teachers. Prior to this, he worked at Pearson on BTEC qualifications, educational textbooks and online learning. Based in Oxfordshire.

Head of Early Careers and Staff Apprenticeships, BBC Academy

Sarah has worked for the BBC for nearly 30 years and has extensive knowledge and experience in BBC network television and radio production, training delivery, and early careers programme delivery. Skilled in managing, designing and delivering early careers programme of activity including over 30 different schemes, supporting strategic business priorities, working across the BBC and wider broadcasting industry with external training partners, colleges and universities to deliver new programmes to meet industry need.

Head of Skills and Industry Engagement, Screen Yorkshire

Beatrice currently works at Screen Yorkshire as Head of Skills and Industry Engagement, where since 2022 she has been looking after the skills training programmes Beyond Brontës, Screen Yorkshire’s bespoke Skills and Craft Courses and Connected Campus while nurturing Screen Yorkshire’s relationships with the wider screen industries. As Screen Yorkshire leads on the newly formed Screen Alliance North in partnership with North East Screen, Screen Manchester and Liverpool Film Office, she also is responsible for any delivery under SAN, the BFI Skills Cluster for the North of England.

This follows an 8-year period of working as a freelance film and distribution consultant, trainer and mentor at her own company BeA Film besides lecturing part time at Sheffield Hallam University. She worked with filmmakers developing marketing and distribution strategies, occasionally distributed directly work in the UK (WE ARE THE GEORDIES, BATTLE MOUNTAIN: A GRAEME OBREE STORY) in collaboration with the filmmakers, designed training programmes for the international film industry and created the DIY distribution marketplace Distribution Rewired in collaboration with Edinburgh International Film Festival. She has delivered training and mentoring for Creative England, Screen Skills Ireland, the Film Distributors’ Association UK, Dame Changers Australia, British Film Institute, Film Cymru, amongst many others and often moderates and speaks on industry panels. Recently she helped develop ISI – International Screen Institute, a new training organisation based in Vienna, Austria.

Preceding that she had enjoyed a 11-year career in film acquisitions for sales and distribution where she worked on films like Andrea Arnold’s FISHTANK, Luca Guadagnino’s I AM LOVE and Oscar winning THE COVE for The Works and before that Content Film.