For years, efforts to make the UK television industry more inclusive have largely focused on access initiatives, designed to help people from underrepresented backgrounds “get a foot in the door”.
While questions of diversity and representation have received growing industry attention, class inequality has often remained less prevalent within these discussions. And where interventions have been introduced, they have tended to focus on entry and skills-gaps rather than the deeper structural conditions that shape who is able to sustain a long-term career once inside the industry.
However, new research I carried out with colleagues suggests that class inequality in television is not merely an issue of access – it is increasingly a matter of workforce sustainability.
In our new policy briefing, From Evidence to Action: Class Inequality, Workforce Sustainability and Workforce wellbeing in UK television, my colleague Anna Theodoulides and I argue that the key issue is no longer simply who gets into television, but who can afford to stay and build a long-term career.
The briefing combines in-depth qualitative research from the AHRC-funded What’s On? Rethinking Class in the Television Industry project with workforce and wellbeing data from the Film & TV Charity’s Looking Glass 2024 survey. Together, these two evidence bases offer one of the clearest pictures to date of how class shapes workforce experience, wellbeing and career progression within UK television.
Getting in versus being able to stay
Our findings show how long working hours, freelance insecurity, informal recruitment and uneven career risk shape who is able to remain and progress within television production. Freelance television work is insecure and highly unpredictable. Contracts are short-term and many opportunities circulate informally through existing contacts and previous working relationships rather than open recruitment.
Across our case studies, 61% of roles were secured through personal networks and previous contracts, while only 8% were publicly advertised. Some television workers also reflected on these experiences in a research-led short film co-produced with Leeds-based Candour Productions, directed by Imaan Labad.
Long working hours compound these pressures. Production staff described cultures where exhaustion and overwork were normalised and where saying no to work could carry professional consequences.
For workers from more affluent backgrounds, periods of instability may be buffered by family support, savings, housing security or existing industry networks. But for workers from working-class backgrounds – particularly where class intersects with race, disability, gender or geography – the same conditions can become career-ending.
To explain this, our briefing introduces the concept of “classed risk distribution”. This refers to the way financial, temporal and emotional risks are organised across television production. Risk is not experienced equally. Some workers are better positioned to absorb unpaid labour, relocation costs, unstable contracts or periods between jobs. Others are not. And these pressures are not only economic – they also shape mental wellbeing.
This article is part of our State of the Arts series. These articles tackle the challenges of the arts and heritage industry – and celebrate the wins, too.
The Film & TV Charity’s Looking Glass 2024 survey highlights high levels of poor mental health across the sector. Our briefing used this evidence alongside What’s On? findings to show how those pressures are intensified where workers lack the financial and social resources needed to navigate instability. Mental wellbeing therefore cannot be understood purely as an individual issue. It is also shaped by the organisation of work itself.
This matters at a moment when large numbers of UK television workers are questioning whether they can remain in the industry at all. Even among permanent employees, those from working class backgrounds are more likely to report intentions to leave than their more advantaged peers.
At the same time, television is experiencing wider economic pressure: production slowdowns, commissioning uncertainty and growing concern about long-term workforce sustainability. In this context, working conditions become not only an equality issue, but an industrial one.
These questions matter beyond the workforce itself. One of the findings from the wider What’s On? project is that audiences increasingly interpret television through ideas of class, authenticity and credibility. Audiences are not simply asking whether programmes are entertaining. They are also asking whether they feel truthful, whether they understand the lives they depict and whether the people making them appear connected to the worlds represented on screen.
Questions of representation therefore cannot be separated from questions of labour. Who is able to remain and progress within television production shapes whose stories, experiences, perspectives and voices are ultimately sustained within television culture.
What needs to change?
The good news is that many of the things needed to address these problems already exist. Our briefing argues that broadcasters, regulators, funders and industry bodies should focus not only on access, but on retention and progression. That includes:
- improving transparency in recruitment and hiring
- monitoring workload intensity and working conditions
- strengthening progression tracking beyond entry level schemes
- embedding structured mentoring and support
- reducing financial barriers associated with freelance work.
None of these interventions alone will solve inequality in television. But together they begin to shift the conversation away from the idea that the problem is simply a lack of aspiration or access.
The issue is not whether talented people from working-class backgrounds want to work in television. It is whether the industry is currently organised in ways that allow them to build sustainable careers once they arrive.
And at a time when British television is increasingly concerned with its public value, legitimacy and future sustainability, that question matters more than ever.
