What’s On? Rethinking class in the UK television industry

Class inequality in the television industry: how working‑class backgrounds shape who stays and who leaves

New research conducted for the ​‘What’s On? Rethinking Class in the Television Industry’ project from the University of Leeds shows that class inequality extends far beyond who gets through the door. For workers from working‑class backgrounds, disadvantage is built into how the industry operates – through its contract structures, recruitment cultures, and working conditions. 

How was the ​‘What’s On?’ research conducted?

The research involved interviews with television professionals ranging from runners and electricians to producers, directors, and commissioners, working across BBC and Channel 4 productions. The team also observed the production processes of two programmes and analysed class representation on screen. 

To strengthen and complement this qualitative evidence, the authors of the policy briefing – Professor Beth Johnson and Anna Theodoulides of the University of Leeds – partnered with the Film and TV Charity, drawing on survey data from the Looking Glass 2024 report. With over 4,300 respondents, it is one of the largest studies of workforce wellbeing in the UK screen sector. 

Classed risk distribution and why working-class TV workers are more likely to leave  

The term classed risk distribution was introduced to the research to describe how the financial, emotional and temporal risks of working in television are organised in ways that systematically transfer hardship onto those least able to absorb it. 

Television work is characterised by insecure contracts, long hours, informal hiring and project-to-project uncertainty. These conditions create risks for the entire workforce. However, the severity and impact of these risks are not borne equally. 

Workers from working-class backgrounds are less likely in comparison with those from intermediate or professional socio-economic backgrounds, to have family financial support between jobs, professional networks to facilitate the next opportunity, or the accumulated capital that makes it possible to absorb extended periods of uncertainty. 

These deficits contribute to worse wellbeing outcomes among industry professionals from working-class backgrounds, who consider leaving the industry at higher rates than their colleagues employed on the same contracts, but with more privileged class backgrounds. 

What does the data reveal? 

New cross-tabulated analysis of Film and TV Charity data reveals what we describe as a classed precarity penalty: 

Among workers on temporary contracts, those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds reported poor or very poor mental health at a rate of 59.5%, as opposed to 35.6% for those from professional backgrounds. This gap of over 20% reflects differences that cannot be attributed to contract type.

For workers from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, temporary employment was associated with a 27.4% rise in poor mental health. However, temporary workers from professional backgrounds also have worse mental health than their permanently employed counterparts, too, but only by 12.4%. 

Same contracts, different outcomes 

Even among workers who are permanently employed, class background continues to shape their experiences of work. 

Among permanent staff, 59.7% of workers from working-class backgrounds reported having considered leaving the industry due to concerns about their mental wellbeing, as opposed to 48.2% for those from professional backgrounds – a gap of 11.5% 

This suggests that however valuable stable contracts may be, they are not sufficient to retain workers from working-class backgrounds. Participants pointed instead to an industry culture in which progression depends on access to networks and mentoring relationships that are not equally available, and where certain accents, ways of speaking and behaving, and styles of self-presentation are afforded greater authority than others. 

Why this matters for the UK film and TV industry 

If those who leave are disproportionately from working-class backgrounds, the workforce becomes progressively less representative. This has consequences not only for those working in television, but for what appears on screen. 

Research from the What’s On? project demonstrates that the conditions under which television is made, including who has access to creative roles and whose experiences are recognised as authoritative, directly shape the content of programmes. When the workforce narrows along class lines, the repertoire of stories, settings and perspectives available to audiences narrows with it. 

Classed risk distribution is therefore not only a question of fairness for individual workers, but a challenge to the long-term sustainability, diversity, and creative capacity of the UK television sector.

Further reading

For a fuller account of the evidence and its implications, see Johnson and Theodoulides (2026), From Evidence to Action: Class Inequality, Workforce Sustainability and Workforce Wellbeing in UK Television, a policy briefing produced in collaboration with the Film and TV Charity. The briefing will be published on 8th May and will be available via the What’s On? project website.