A key focus at Bristol Creative Industries is boosting workforce diversity in creative businesses and helping to grow the talent pipeline for our members.

Our report, A creative force to be reckoned with: Unleashing the power of Bristol’s creative industries, found that accessing talent with the right skillsets was the biggest challenge facing more than a third of creative businesses in the south west. 

It also showed that increasing diversity and inclusion was a significant priority for six in 10 creative firms, but 21% admitted they were struggling to recruit talent from diverse backgrounds, and 48% wanted more help finding diverse employees from underrepresented groups.

In this post, we outline the initiatives in the Bristol Creative Industries Talent Programme which is focused on tackling those challenges.

If you’re not yet a BCI member, join here to take advantage of the member exclusive initiatives.  

Equity, diversity and inclusion training for BCI members

Research shows that diverse teams are more creative problem solvers, bringing fresh perspectives to solutions, against the echo-chamber effect that results when people in a business come from too-similar backgrounds. With a strong focus on diversity and inclusion, employees feel valued and that they belong.

To help Bristol Creative Industries members achieve this, we have partnered with The Hobbs Consultancy to provide on demand equity, diversity and inclusion (ED&I) e-learning. 

The CPD certified online course consists of modules to help you bring about positive change in your business, understand the key challenges in the way for different groups, and explore your own biases and how to overcome them.

The training modules take an in-depth look at different diversity and inclusion topics: race, disability, LGBTQ+, neurodiversity, gender (split into female leadership, masculinity, gender identity), age and social mobility in the workplace.

The price of the training for BCI members is £120+VAT. All profits will be ploughed back into our youth engagement activity.

To access this brilliant training opportunity, log into your Bristol Creative Industries account and click on the ‘members’ training’ section.

Developing student talent

We have formed a new partnership with UWE Bristol to support Bristol’s thriving creative businesses and provide enhanced careers opportunities to students entering the industry.

The partnership has been designed to offer insight and career opportunities to thousands studying courses rooted in the creative industries, including marketing, events, filmmaking, photography, media and communications.

It also aims to benefit BCI members, by developing a network of trained students who will make up the future workforce within the region and are ready to enter the industry.

Find out more here.

Influencing the curriculum and driving change

We have committed to an annual programme of round tables with key post 16 education providers in the region including colleges, academies and universities. 

Our aim is to promote creative careers to staff and career advisers, drive applications to our internship programme and explore how we can promote the creative industries to students already studying. 

We also have this regularly updated guide to creative industries-related further and higher education courses in Bristol and Bath to make young people more aware of their options. 

Opportunity to mentor high potential young people

We have to start engagement at school by raising the profile of the creative sector to a wider and more diverse audience. To do this, we regularly bring together creative business members and future talent through mentoring. 

Among the initiatives are a partnership with The Early Careers Foundation (ECF), a social mobility charity that works with young people from low-income backgrounds to ensure that talent and hard work are what determine their career success, not background.

Through its mentoring programme, ECF pairs employees from partner organisations with 16-18-year-olds for monthly hour-long mentoring sessions. In 2024, BCI members signed up as mentors and supported young people in building their confidence, developing their employability skills and offering invaluable professional guidance.

We were also delighted to take part in the 2024 Discover! Creative Careers Week, an industry-led initiative designed to provide young people aged 11-18, from England, with encounters and experiences of the creative industries through in-school, workplace and online opportunities.

In partnership with Speakers for Schools, several Bristol Creative Industries members provided virtual work experience sessions covering PR, marketing, advertising, film, TV and more. Find out what happened here.

Look out for the latest mentoring opportunities on our blog and in the BCI Bulletin newsletter.

About Bristol Creative Industries

Bristol Creative Industries is the membership network that supports the region's creative sector to learn, grow and connect, driven by the common belief that we can achieve more collectively than alone.