£32m Skills Investment Fund targets skills gap

Creative Skillset has opened a £32 million Skills Investment Fund to address skills shortages in games, animation, film, VFX and high-end TV.

The organisation has pledged up to £16 million to fund identified priority skills needs. For each £1 investment by the industry, Creative Skillset will match it up to £16m, making £32m.

Creative Skillset will work with all five sectors to identify areas of investment and skills shortages, and develop action plans on how to invest the funds.

The game industry will co-invest through a number of schemes including funding training for professionals and supporting trainees through a pilot initiative to be launched next month.

The Skills Investment Fund will invest in a number of initiatives such as new entrant training up to the development of skills of professionals already plying their trade. Schemes to achieve this could include bootcamps, apprenticeships, subsidised training schemes, short courses and showing and mentoring programmes.

More details on how developers and publishers can co-invest in the scheme and how individual professionals can develop their skills is expected to be announced during the next month.