The UK experienced a production boom in 2022, with film and high-end TV spend reaching a record $7.7bn (£6.3bn) in 2022. According to BFI figures, inward investment was $6.6bn (£5.4bn), as US studios and streamers came to the UK in huge numbers, drawn by tax breaks, excellent local crews, expanding studio facilities, VFX expertise and the wide array of rural, urban, modern and period locations.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt pointed out after the UK government’s March 2023 Budget that the country’s film and television industry is now the biggest in Europe.

One major development is the government’s decision to reform the film and TV reliefs and replace them with an expenditure credit system. The audiovisual expenditure credit (AVEC), which starts in January 2024, will ensure the UK’s creative sector conforms to new global tax regulations. It will be worth almost the same to incoming film and TV productions as under the old system, and the British Film Commission has worked hard to assure international producers they should not be adversely affected.

“The overwhelming proportion of inward investment has stopped because of the external conditions but there is still a lot of work happening throughout the nations and regions,” says Adrian Wootton, CEO of Film London and the British Film Commission just prior to the end of the writers strike. “The underlying conditions and competitiveness of UK film and television is still extraordinarily strong… the silver lining about the situation [of the strikes] is that there are more people available to work on domestic independent and international production. The circumstances have led to a deflationary impact [on prices]. If people are looking at the UK, they will be pleasantly surprised by availability of crew and cost of stage space.”

New studio space and facilities are opening up. Construction on the Digbeth Loc Studios in Birmingham is underway, and Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, the driving force behind the facility, will base his productions there. The site is expected to attract independent film and smaller scale television.

Shinfield Studios at Thames Valley Science Park in Reading is due to be open fully by 2024. The $367m (£300m) project will have 18 soundstages and is described as “absolutely, utterly colossal” by Wootton. “These are state of the art, incredible stages, the most technologically sophisticated stages you can find anywhere in the world.”

In summer 2022, planning permission was granted for the construction of Sunset Waltham Cross Studios, a new complex in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, just north of London, while Eastbrook Studios and its sister site The Wharf Studio in east London’s Barking and Dagenham are expected to have 18 stages between them.

The Bottle Yard Studios in Bristol continues to expand and is expected soon to have 11 stages available. This is all in addition to existing facilities, including Scotland’s Wardpark in Cumbernauld and FirstStage Studios in Leith, Wolf Studios in Wales, Belfast Harbour Studios and Titanic Studios in Northern Ireland as well as long-established bases such as Pinewood, Shepperton and Elstree. The British Film Commission now lists more than 40 studio sites across the UK, catering to every kind of project.

One issue now being addressed is a potential skills shortage and a squeeze on crews. “We still do need a lot more people into the industry,” acknowledges Wootton. “When all this infrastructure comes on stream and starts to be populated with production, it will need more people.”

A National Skills Taskforce has bought together US studios, streamers and local broadcasters. A report, due to be published before the end of 2023, details how the industry will operate alongside universities and training colleges to ensure there are enough new recruits for UK film and television.

Following the formal withdrawal of the UK from the European Union in 2020, the UK has been signing a series of post-Brexit film and TV agreements with European partners, among them Spain and Austria. The idea is to encourage greater cultural, commercial and creative exchange with these partners while also supporting inward investment in film and high-end TV production in the relevant countries.

“I see us getting very busy again, very quickly,” says Wootton, who expects 2024 to be another bumper year for the UK film and TV sector. “The UK remains in an incredibly good position for the resumption of business.”

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