Make Freelancing Pay : Can we use taxes & benefits to boost competitiveness, and improve workforce diversity and retention in the UK screen sector?

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Eikhof, Doris Ruth and Randolph, Hannah L. (2025) Make Freelancing Pay : Can we use taxes & benefits to boost competitiveness, and improve workforce diversity and retention in the UK screen sector? Design Otherwise, Glasgow. (https://doi.org/10.36399/gla.pubs.348090)

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Abstract

Film and TV are key to the creative industries’ £124.6bn GVA contribution to the UK economy. Their creative and commercial competitiveness depends on the availability of a skilled and diverse workforce. A large share of that crucial workforce is self-employed or works on project-based contracts, with high income insecurity and often challenging working conditions. Since the COVID-19 pandemic and catalysed by the production downturn, strikes and cost of living crisis, we are observing a worrying trend of screen freelancers leaving the film and TV industries. We risk loosing the vital skills and workforce diversity UK film and TV depend on. This research asked if the UK can better support screen freelancers with tax and benefits policies. We took inspiration from policies used in other countries to specifically support creative workers, and modelled how such policies would affect the disposable household income of screen freelancers in the UK. Our microsimulation modelling was based on policies currently in place in Germany, France, South Korea, Spain, Ireland and Sweden. These policies focus on unemployment benefits, social insurance, minimum wages, universal basic income and housing support. We modelled policy outcomes for six cases (freelancers on average, high and low incomes; younger freelancers; disabled freelancers and freelancers working outside of London), both with and without children. Policy outcomes varied greatly both in the size of the impact on disposable household income, and in how they benefit freelancers with different characteristics. Policies that provided a national minimum wage for creative work or a universal basic income for creative freelancers were most progressive. Our research shows that UK governments can use tax & benefits policy to deliver substantive improvements in disposable household income for screen freelancers. Tax and benefits are an effective lever for supporting freelancers in balancing creative and professional fulfilment with the need to make a living. Now is both an urgent and promising moment for putting new ideas into policy and practice.

ORCID iDs

Eikhof, Doris Ruth and Randolph, Hannah L. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4701-8182;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)