Despite the government’s promise of a booming creative sector, a growing number of Northern film and TV freelancers say they are “hanging on” or walking away from what were once their dream careers.
As part of a new focus week for Prolific North’s Creative Powerhouse series examining the realities facing Northern freelancers, industry veterans and emerging talent have spoken candidly about an industry they believe is in “crisis” and why staying has become “impossible” for some.
“I had to leave the industry as I could no longer afford to work,” says Alice*, who recently stepped away from working in factual and outside broadcast television after nine years as a camera operator in Doncaster.
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But it was a “terrifying” decision to step away from a career she loved. Speaking from her new home in Reading, she’s now retraining for a career in the aviation industry and moved south to be with her partner.
“Now, it feels like the Wild West in TV. It’s become a locked-off world. You have to know the right people just to get into WhatsApp groups to find out what the going rate is. A lot of people don’t know, so they undercut rates without realising.
“With companies trying to cut costs, I think the industry will collapse. And I think it’ll be sooner rather than later.”
Freelancers might be the “glue” holding the UK’s film and TV industry together, but for many working both in front of and behind the camera, the on-going instability has become unsustainable.
That sense of urgency is reflected in the data. According to a 2025 survey by film and TV trade union Bectu, a third of screen industry workers now expect to leave the sector within the next five years, while 70% say they are struggling financially. And almost half are out of work.
While those figures are not Northern-specific, many freelancers say the impact is felt even more keenly outside London, where opportunities are already limited.
Several people pointed me towards industry support groups on Facebook to get a flavour of what’s happening, such as ‘TV Mindset’. A quick scroll offers a sobering snapshot of life in the sector: anonymous post after anonymous post from freelancers asking for advice on how to keep going, how to pivot into other industries, or how to survive the gaps between contracts.
Another space where the slowdown is visible is TV Talent North, a Facebook support group with more than 13,000 members. It was initially set up in 2020 as an employment initiative during Covid, backed by indies and major broadcasters, and quickly became a key hub for jobs.
Cat Lewis, founder of independent production company Nine Lives Media, remembers a very different picture a few years ago as multiple job adverts were being posted daily. Now, she says it is closer to one every few days.
Her son, Joe Lewis, spent eight years working in television as a researcher and assistant producer on programmes such as Dragons’ Den. But when the show “moved up to Glasgow”, the gaps between contracts began to grow, despite him picking up other freelance work along the way.
“He’s ended up retraining,” she explains. “His degree was in environmental science anyway, so he’s now working in the solar panel industry. He’s also moved to Australia, because he decided to live abroad for a couple of years. He’s loving it and earning a hell of a lot more than he ever did in television.”
While retraining is possible, she argues there has been a lack of conversation about the scale of “seismic change” facing the industry.
“There’s a lack of transparency. Young people are trying to hang on in an increasingly competitive industry, with fewer jobs and bigger gaps between contracts.”
“For it to suddenly end feels like being dumped”
For Alice* and many other Northern freelancers I’ve spoken to, the current industry climate feels like a “perfect storm” post Covid with no clear end in sight. A slowdown in commissioning, changing viewing habits and the growing dominance of global streaming platforms have combined to hit freelancers hardest.
Fearing they could be “blacklisted” for speaking out, several of those freelancers asked to remain anonymous while describing long gaps between work, “appalling” day rates and “intense”, unpaid overtime. And for more experienced freelancers, the pressure looks different.
“I’m trying to have a bit of optimism. It’s really hard,” says Sarah*, a senior TV executive with more than 30 years in television.
Despite decades of credits across major dramas and documentaries, she believes she is now increasingly overlooked for work. She has taken on a part-time teaching role to stay afloat and admits she may need to increase her hours if freelance TV work does not pick up again soon.
“I’m very aware this might be where my world goes,” she explains. “And that really, really p*sses me off. After all the sacrifices, the long hours, the months abroad, for it to suddenly end feels like being dumped.”
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Filmmaker Dion Russell, who splits his time between Leeds and Manchester, has worked in television for eight years. After years of back-to-back contracts for major broadcasters, he thought he had finally “made it”. Then the work dried up.
“I was working on Sky’s Cobra when I started hearing rumblings about the writers’ and actors’ strikes over in the US,” he says. “I didn’t realise how bad it would get. I thought I’d had a good year and could take a few months off but that’s when everything started to go wrong.”
“Nothing was being made anymore. The quiet periods stretched on much longer than they usually do. Since 2022, slowly, the work has been disappearing and I’ve been out of work for longer periods despite picking up daily jobs. The past year was the worst.”
But when those bigger jobs do appear, competition has intensified, pushing some experienced freelancers into lower-paid roles.
“I even had to fight to get an assistant on minimum wage for an indie feature. Because of the quiet working climate, part of me thinks people are taking advantage of that and making people work for lower rates. They know people can’t say no to it, because there’s no work out there.”
Working for low or no pay is something Manchester-based filmmaker and actor Eleanor Roberts knows all too well. Since leaving university, she has juggled full-time 9 to 5 customer service jobs alongside working on unpaid short films.
“I was so keen to get opportunities. We’d agree on a rate but by the end of filming, everyone was so stressed that you just forget about it. But even that rate wasn’t liveable, right?
“I had to have my 9-5 job to have enough money to go to these jobs. My travel was paid for, but I didn’t get a fee. There was just no feasible way for me to do it unless I picked up lots of different projects – but there’s just not enough time in the day.”
“I used to have breathing space”
John*, a producer who has worked in television since 2010, says the so-called “golden years of telly” have been replaced by “intense” workloads driven by shrinking budgets, squeezed delivery schedules and “unqualified staff” being promoted too quickly.
“I’m doing a lot of overtime and in TV, there’s an attitude that you’re only as good as your last job so you can’t really be seen to be rocking the boat or kicking up a fuss.
“My last project was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I asked for help as I was finding myself working weekends just to keep on top of the workload for my sanity, because I knew going into Monday I’d be in a better place otherwise I’d be absolutely slaughtered. I used to have breathing space, now it stresses me out.”
He now says the majority of his work now comes from digital or branded content for London-based companies.
“About half my friends working in the industry are looking to leave. Many already have,” he says. “It’s a volatile industry, the unpredictability is unbearable and there is a lack of work out there, especially in the North.”
Like Alice*, he also describes the industry as the “wild west”, pointing to the disappearance of structured, formal training opportunities and the boundaries around working hours.
He admits he’s already plotting an exit to “pivot out of TV” and build his own business before the industry pushes him out entirely.
“I feel like I’m at the end of the road, but I’m just hanging on for the sake of my mortgage,” he explains. “I would say I’m definitely going to leave the industry. It’s just a matter of when but certainly within the next five years.”
“My friends and family don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes unless I tell them. When they’re watching TV, they think everything’s great, they don’t see how much blood, sweat and tears go into it.”
Spencer MacDonald, national secretary of film and TV trade union Bectu, agrees. Although Bectu’s current figures are national rather than regional, he explains why it has been a “torrid time” for the industry.
“The industry was on the up and up for a good decade. When Covid hit, it was a hard stop with the restrictions. There was a massive boom for a very short period when everything opened back up but then it dried up again with the Writers Guild Strike, followed by the SAG-AFTRA Strike.
“More and more people were looking for the stuff that’s produced by broadcasters and low budget feature films, there was a real problem with oversupply of labour for a long period. Only in 2025 has this started to pick up again. It’s very busy in London but it’s not so busy in the regions.”
On why this is, he explains while the North is used by some of the major feature films for locations, there aren’t the same “big stages and volume to accommodate these types of productions”.
He adds: “They use the North a lot for locations but they don’t plant their flag there. I think that’s the difference and why it’s busier in London and the South East than anywhere else at the moment.”
But he does believe this is starting to change. “There are big productions now spreading out, it’s becoming less London-centric, but I wouldn’t say it’s happening overnight.”
Having tracked the mood among freelancers across the UK for years, he says unscripted television has been hit particularly hard. And the phrase “wild west” keeps coming up again and again.
“It’s the wild west for unscripted production. Budgets are terrible. There are no boundaries on when you start or finish work, so it’s common for people to work 16-hour days because they sign a ‘buyout’ that means no payments for working weekends or evenings. You’re just paid a flat fee. The level of production has fallen off a cliff, whereas features and dramas are slowly bouncing back.
“You probably see more people in unscripted actually leaving the industry than in features and drama areas. So with that, the hours and everything else they’re expected to do, we’ve been trying to lobby for better protection for them.”
For people like Dion Russell, time is ticking on what happens next for his career. “I know people who are genuinely struggling, like myself. I keep looking at my bank balance. On one hand, I love the industry. It’s my dream job. On the other hand, I think: am I really getting anywhere?”
For others, like Alice*, the decision has already been made. “Imagine the brain drain,” she explains. “People can’t afford to live. It’s been going on for nearly three years, especially in factual TV. We’re completely out of touch.”
Our focus week continues tomorrow, with a closer look at other freelancer stories and a deeper dive into some of the experiences shared here. We’ll share why Alice* felt compelled to write a letter to her MP, what support freelancers are receiving from the government, and what they say they need most right now.
*Names have been changed for anonymity.
