Skillset/UK Film Council Feature Film Production Workforce Survey 2008

2.3 Age

The mean age of the respondents was 38.5, slightly lower than in the 2005 survey report.Three quarters were aged between 25 and 49 years, while 16% were 50 or over. The proportion of respondents under the age of 25 was higher in the present survey (8%) than the 2005 survey report (3%).

These findings suggest the film industry workforce is of a similar age to the audio visual workforce as a whole. 15% of the wider audio visual workforce was aged 50 or over, according to the 2005 Survey of the Audio Visual Industries’ Workforce.

The film industry workforce had a larger proportion of workers in early middle age than the overall UK workforce, and fewer people in the very youngest and oldest age groups, as shown in Table 2.3.1.For example, according to recent LFS data, 14% of the UK workforce is aged between 16 and 24, compared with only 8% of the film survey respondents.

This difference mirrors the one reported in the 2005 survey. As was noted in that report, it seems most likely due to the fact that people enter the film industry at a higher age than for entry into the UK workforce as a whole, having obtained degree level qualifications or spending time working on other types of audio visual production before their first paid job in the film industry.

The male respondents in the film survey were older, on average, than the women (the average age was 40 and 36 respectively). There was an even gender split in the youngest age group(16 to 24), but women were much more likely to fall into the 25-34 age group (45% of women and 27% of men). While 21% of the men were aged 50 or older, this was true for only 10% of the women.As noted in the 2005 survey report, possible explanations of this age difference might include an increase in the number of women entering the film industry in recent years, or a lower retention rate in the industry for women compared with men, perhaps for family reasons. In this connection, Skillset recently conducted a study to explore further the experience of parents or ‘would be’ parents working in the film and TV industries. For the summary report please go to: www.skillset.org/research.

Table 2.3.1 Age by gender

2.3.1 Age by occupational group

Different occupational groups had varying age profiles: those working in production (mean age 35.8), as assistant directors (30.1) or in locations (35.9), tended to be younger than those in the other departments, while the oldest occupational groups were construction (43.9) and sound / electrical (40.5).

Table 2.3.2 Age by occupational group