About continuing professional development

What's the point of continuing professional development (CPD)?

The UK screen industries have a global reputation for being at the top of their game – and we want to stay there.  ScreenSkills recognises the need to equip the industries’ highly skilled workforce with the tools they need to keep delivering top quality output in the face of:

1. Critical skills shortages (Brexit/production boom)
2. Rapid evolution of technology
3. Changing audience habits

What do ScreenSkills want to do?

1. Cultivate the notion of personal responsibility for continuing professional development – wherever and however you work i.e. self-employed, employed in either large well supported companies or small companies without the infrastructure to formally support investment in professional development
2. Define what continuing professional development is and why it is critical to the continued success of the film industry in the UK
3. Share the purpose and processes associated with accessing and applying continuing professional development
4. Introduce a framework that structures, defines and aligns continuing professional development to business needs. Click here to download and read the ScreenSkills CPD Framework (PDF).
5. Create the expectation of continual improvement amongst employers leading to continuing professional development becoming the norm rather than the exception

Who are we supporting?

• Screen industry professionals
• Providers of learning and development
• People with responsibility for workforce development
• Senior and strategic leaders and policy-makers

How will we do this?

The approach ScreenSkills is taking to professionalising continuing professional development in the UK screen industries follows four steps.

For individuals (employed or self-employed): Use the framework to cross-reference your self-identified career stage to work out what is expected of you and what continuing professional development intervention might support you in your career progression. Use the strategy and its downloadable resources to identify skills gaps and appropriate learning and development.

For training providers: Use the framework to identify the learning outcomes expected from a continuing professional development intervention.  Use the strategy and its downloadable resources to support the application of learning and development

For employers: If appropriate, use the framework and strategy to support line management conversations to develop staff.

STEP ONE: The Framework

The ScreenSkills CPD Framework (PDF) is built around four career stages, a set of universal competencies (skills required to do a job) and core industry values.

The four career stages: To find more detail about what each of these stages entails, click here to download a description of the stages (PDF).

1. Entry
2. Early
3. Experienced
4. Expert

The four industry values:

1. Honesty
2. Inclusion
3. Respect
4. Excellence

The four universal competencies:

1. Working with others
2. FInancial and commercial awareness
3. Professional expertise
4. Personal development

STEP TWO: The process

There are three stages to the process and the onus is on the individual to take personal responsibility for their continuing professional development. Industry benefits when they bring their new or improved skills to their working life. The process of identifying the right intervention is as follows:

1. Assessment to:

• uncover gaps in skills and capabilities
• provide an overview of professional development to date
• highlight achievements and progression
• direct career and help focus on career goals
• identify development needs
• provide examples and scenarios for a CV or interview
• demonstrate professional standing
• help with career development or a possible career change.

2. Planning and execution of appropriate continuing professional development to include a mix of mentoring and/or coaching, free of charge resources i.e. podcasts, Ted talks, reading, commercially available training, work-based learning i.e. shadowing, peer review, action learning sets

3. Recording learning to cement applicable outcomes and demonstrate CPD to current and future employers

Successful personal and professional development is dependent on it being user-friendly, done at the right time and easily applied.

STEP THREE: Commissioning

Commissioning of continuing professional development programmes is guided by industry need.  ScreenSkills’ Skills Forecasting service polls employers via three different surveys to establish where the industry skills and job gaps are.  Industry-led Working Groups are then consulted and offer reflection and insight into the data. 

STEP FOUR: Measuring quality and impact

As part of its continuing professional development strategy, ScreenSkills will be developing and introducing CPD Quality and Impact Guidance (QIG), a standard methodology and process to measure the outcomes and impact of various types of continuing professional development delivered within the screen sectors. To learn more, click here to download and read the ScreenSkills CPD Strategy (PDF).

The ambition is to not only be able to measure quality, impact and efficacy of continuing professional development commissioned by ScreenSkills but also to establish common expectations that other CPD available in the sector can also demonstrate the same standards and impact  

If you have any questions about any of this framework, please contact Emma Turner at: emma.turner@screenskills.com. 

Click the links below to download PDF versions of all documents referenced on this page, or resources which you can use to help inform your own continuing professional development: 

• ScreenSkills CPD Strategy (PDF)
• ScreenSkills CPD Framework (PDF)
• A Guide to the Four Es (Career Stages) (PDF)
• CPD Learning Log Template (PDF)
• CPD Personal Development Template (PDF)
• ScreenSkills CPD Commissioning Guidelines (PDF)
• ScreenSkills Priority Areas for CPD Commissioning 2019/20 (PDF)