Supporting the next generation of lighting talent has been part of SLX’s story for years, and applications are now open for the 2026/27 cohort of our Lighting Programme.
Launched in 2018, the programme was created to give emerging lighting designers and technical theatre students meaningful support as they prepare to take the next step into the industry. Each year, five students from across the UK are selected to join the programme during their final year of study, gaining access to practical support, industry insight and real opportunities that help bridge the gap between education and working life.
For students heading into their final year, the programme is designed to give participants a chance to build their confidence, strengthen their knowledge and gain a clearer understanding of the different career paths available within lighting and technical production.
We know how important that early support can be, SLX is a Bristol-based technical production and hire company working across live events, light trails, sports, TV and broadcast, and performing arts. Creativity and problem solving sit at the heart of what we do, but just as important is the responsibility we feel to support the industries we are part of. As a B Corp, that purpose-led approach shapes how we work, how we grow and how we invest in people.
The Lighting Programme reflects that mindset. SLX was built by people with a genuine passion for these industries, and that has never changed. We know the sector depends on skilled, creative people coming through, and we believe established businesses have a role to play in helping make that happen.
Successful applicants will gain access to mentorship, hands-on experience, exposure to professional equipment and a better understanding of the realities of working in the sector. The aim is to help students move forward with more confidence, stronger industry awareness and a clearer sense of where their skills could take them.
We are now inviting applications from lighting design and technical theatre students who will be entering their final year of study in September 2026.
Applications for the 2026/27 cohort are open from 13 April 2026 to 8 May 2026.
To find out more about the programme and apply, visit: here
Average Agency Salary in the South West: Digital Marketing Salary Guide 2026.
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Hello fellow BCI members (and of course the wider community)!
We are delighted to have joined BCI as a member and we’re pleased to have been working as a recruitment partner for many fellow members over the years!
Moxie and Mettle is an independent recruitment business, specialising in marketing, communications, digital, PR, creative and office support roles, with a three decade history of placing permanent, interim and freelance professionals.
We have a range of services and fee structures, and offer BCI members special rates and terms too.
Also, remember that our standard service fee is only payable if you decide to employ a candidate introduced by Moxie and Mettle; it’s a good way to expand your reach for candidates to get the best person for your roles.
Feel free to find out more at www.moxieandmettle.co.uk; and of course, happy to set up a call to discuss.
Very best wishes, thanks for reading!
Liz and Becs, 0117 301 8222, [email protected]
Tom Bowden-Green, Bristol Creative Industries board director and a senior lecturer in marketing within Bristol Business School at UWE Bristol, shares an update on how we are supporting students to pursue creative sector careers and connecting them to employers looking for talent.
“Ask me what my three priorities are as a board director at Bristol Creative Industries and I tell you education, education, education…” OK, I may have borrowed that from a former prime minister 30 years ago (yes 30 years!), but developing ‘talent’ is one of the reasons BCI exists, and a key pillar in our overall strategy.
We are really lucky in this region to have four great universities, and many wider colleges and schools, supporting the creative sector. Whether you want to employ students and/or graduates, or learn from academics engaged in relevant research, there are plenty of opportunities for greater links between members and educators. So, what does this mean in practice?
Number one, we have a database of members who want to support students and educators in the region. This might involve offering mentoring or work experience during holidays, for example, or perhaps providing longer term placements or part time employment.
There are also opportunities to provide more structured support such as talks and guest lectures within established programmes. UWE, for example, has a scheme called Course Connect, linking businesses to specific and relevant modules.
If you’re a BCI member and you’d like to support these efforts, email Alli Nicholas at [email protected]
We’re also growing our BCI student membership. It remains free, and we are going to be increasing the specific activity for these members. As well as providing tickets to some of our events, we intend to increase regular communication through a dedicated student newsletter. If you have an opportunity to share with students of any level, we’d be happy to communicate this through the newsletter.
In the longer term, we are also planning a dedicated student conference in early 2027. We’d love volunteers to speak to students about working in the creative industries, plus there are likely to be sponsorship opportunities. Do let us know if either appeals to you. Email Alli Nicholas at [email protected]
So, what kind of students do we envisage working with as we expand student activities? Well, we already have hundreds of student members, many of whom attend university courses in the region. For example, many of you are involved in some aspect of marketing, and there are thousands of marketing students in the region.
However, there are also many students studying broader creative topics relating to TV and film or digital technology for example. Whatever your expertise or niche, there is bound to be a course and a cohort of students who could benefit from your expertise. Many will also be seeking employment in the years to come.
Of course, university education is not the only route into the creative industries. Student membership is therefore open to students at all levels, including those in post-16 education, and those studying courses later in life. Opportunities to engage therefore include post-16 courses, such as apprenticeships, T-levels, and a range of relevant A-level, as well as postgraduate degrees and professional qualifications.
Beyond working with students directly though, there are many wider benefits of engaging with educators and academics. BCI signed a memorandum of understanding with UWE last year, with an intention to benefit from broader collaboration such as research and knowledge exchange.
BCI has recently supported various Skills Bootcamps for example, including the ‘Broadcast to Branded’ Skills Bootcamp relating to TV and Film production, as well as skills bootcamps in digital marketing and the creative industries.
Whether you’re seeking to attend a bootcamp, or share expertise with learners, there will be many opportunities in the coming months, and probably wider training courses beyond bootcamps. There are also opportunities for research collaboration, including funded Knowledge Transfer Partnerships. If you have a problem requiring an academic mind, just let us know.
On 25 February, we will be hosting our first BCI event at Bristol Business School. This will be a chance to network with academics and others from the creative industries, but also a great opportunity to hear about specific research relating to marketing and psychology. Come along, meet those teaching and researching in this area, ask questions and let us know how we can help you.
The opportunities are broad and varied. I feel a new dawn is breaking, is it not?
Top image credit: © Tom Sparey, All Rights Reserved.
This article was written by Epoch’s Marketing Manager, Ricardo P Martins.
Getting that first job is hard.
Even harder in an industry like ours, filled with self-doubt, giant egos, cut-throat competition, and most recently, the threat of an AI revolution. In this industry, opportunities for new talent to get a foot in the door are few and far between.
At Epoch, we believe that opportunities should be giving to everyone, not just to a few privileged people from the “right” schools and/or “right” backgrounds. So, if we see talent, we want to help.
With that drive in our hearts, we created the Epoch Academy.
The Academy, as we fondly call it internally, is Epoch’s internship programme. It’s our way of giving back to our community, providing opportunities for the next generation, nurturing both the future superstars of the industry and those who haven’t yet had the opportunity (or luxury) to break into the creative workforce yet.
We do that by maintaining strong relationships with a handful of universities across the UK. These are universities that not only produce incredible talent every academic year, but also align with our values of putting people first and building meaningful bonds.
We start creating these bonds by sending a team out to each one of these universities to spend time with the students, getting to know them on a one-to-one basis, hearing their stories, their ambitions and learning about what drives them. The Epoch Academy Workshop, held in Bristol around springtime, is the cherry on top of this beautiful relationship. It’s a day of celebrating all the talent we found along the way and spending quality time with them creating, brainstorming, conceptualising, and most importantly, having loads of fun together.
The Workshop is also an opportunity for them to bond not only with us but also with other young creatives from different universities, backgrounds and walks of life.
It’s important to say that, as we can’t visit all universities across the country, we also take applications for the Epoch Workshop on our website. We make sure that at least 40% of workshop attendees come from these website applications.
The biggest bond of this journey, however, is created during the internship itself. By then, they know us. They’ve met us in their classrooms, connected with us on LinkedIn, and spent a whole day with us in Bristol. So, when they come through big grey door at 54 Queen Square on their first day, it feels like arriving at a friend’s house.
It’s warm. It’s familiar.
Not to toot our own horn, but many of them want to stay.
A few already have.
And those bonds? They are for life.
The West of England is one of six priority regions to benefit from the government’s £150 million Creative Places Growth Fund. The West of England Mayoral Combined Authority will receive £25m of the funding to support the region’s creative industries.
For three years from April 2026, the funding will focus on four themes. The three priority sectors are screen, createch and music but other areas of the creative industries will be supported too.
Plans being discussed at the moment are as follows:
For full details watch this video:
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West of England Mayoral Combined Authority is running several events so people from the creative industries across the region can share their views on the plan for the fund and other ideas. The events kicked off with UWE Bristol‘s Bristol and Bath Screen Summit.
Helen Godwin, mayor of the West of England, opened the event and said:
“The Creative Places Growth Fund is a real vote of confidence, and the West of England Combined Authority is putting on a series of sessions with different parts of the sector over the coming weeks and months to help shape how we invest.
“The team are really keen that it is an inclusive exercise, and that we hear from the people who are doing all the amazing work, so we know what we need to do and how we best spend the money.
“We do of course have some ideas. The fund will invest to drive growth, innovation and global competitiveness across our creative industries. We think that the funding should include targeted business growth programmes such as international trade and investment initiatives to expand our global reach.
“The fund can also provide creative businesses and freelancers with access to diverse types of finance and support for businesses to adopt new technologies and to innovate even further.
“Sector specific development could include the establishment of a new screen development body, a regional production fund and a music development programme.
“Alongside these initiatives, the fund can address skills gaps and deliver large scale events to boost regional profile and the visitor economy.
“The money should also upskill workers, and it also should be used to attract more private investment to boost production here.
“We believe that if we work together, we can strengthen the west’s position as a world leading creative hub, but it can only happen with you at the heart of it. We are here to support, to help, to steer where necessary, but it must come from within the sector. I’m so excited to work with you all.”
Events have taken place in Bristol, Bath and Weston-super-Mare.
There’s an upcoming online event for South Gloucestershire businesses on Tuesday 2 December at 3pm. You can register here.
You can also submit feedback about the fund here.
To stay updated on the Creative Places Growth Fund, sign up to the mailing list.
Fiasco is excited to announce that Nathan Crosby has joined the team as its new Creative Director. Nathan brings over 14 years’ experience working as a designer and creative director, with past clients that include Lego, Coke, IHG, OVO, Heidi, and Bath Rugby.
Nathan’s commercial experience, creativity and leadership skills make him a fantastic addition to Fiasco as it continues to expand its breadth of work to take on bigger, bolder, more diverse projects.
“Nathan’s perspective brings fresh thinking to the agency and helps raise the bar for our strategic and creative output. His experience working across an impressive roster of big-name brands along with his sharp strategic lens make this an exciting time to join as we continue our trajectory of growth” – Ben Steers, Co-founder and Executive Creative Director.
“I’m thrilled to join the team at Fiasco. Their new brand promise, to move businesses
forward with feeling, puts emotional resonance squarely at the heart of the work they do – as both a platform for creativity, and a true value driver for the businesses they work with. I’m excited to help shape what this means for the agency’s output with a team already setting the bar for creativity and craft so high.” – Nathan Crosby, Creative Director
Fiasco’s recent rebrand – a collaborative effort shaped by the team – sharpens its proposition and expresses with greater clarity what makes it different, and why that matters. This includes the repositioning of its client services team, along with strategic new hires across different areas of the business. With its focus on growth and ambitions to penetrate a larger international market, including the USA, it’s a pivotal time for the business and an exciting time to reposition what Fiasco stands for.
Emotion-led, feeling-first design sits at the heart of everything it does – and is based on the fact feel-good isn’t just a vibe, it’s a value driver. Work this year has expanded to include high profile clients in the technology and AI sector, such as $1 billion dollar valued business planning platform Pigment, and it recently won an award for its rebrand for Britt. Its approach translates into stronger relationships, greater retention, and more sustainable growth.
About:
Fiasco is a brand and digital agency that combines strategic thinking with creative craft to drive businesses forward. By pairing strategic clarity with creative conviction, Fiasco turns complexity into connection, building brands that move both hearts and minds. You can read more about Fiasco and Nathan, over on their site here.
Bristol… we are coming to meet you! Help us shape the future media creatives for our region. We are looking to engage with TV, film, content media, games, animation and the photography industry on 26th November at the gorgeous St George’s Hall
✅ Discuss key challenges and opportunities in the creative sector
✅ Shape future talent pipelines and influence taught curriculum
✅ Strengthen collaboration between education and industry to drive
Enjoy breakfast and open discussion with representatives from Weston College, University Centre Weston and Business West LSIP team
If you’re an employer in the creative industries and would like to join us, sign up through here
https://www.weston.ac.uk/event/media-production-photography-games-and-animation-employer-advisory-board
When the Chancellor delivers the Autumn Budget, creative businesses across Bristol and the South West will be tuning in for signs of support — tax incentives, training funds, digital investment, and measures to steady employer costs.
As Bristol Creative Industries’ recent article, What our members want to see in the Autumn Budget 2025, highlights, the creative community is optimistic yet pragmatic. Members are calling for clarity, consistency and targeted support but they’re also pointing to something more human: the need to nurture and retain the people who make creative businesses thrive.
Budgets may set the economic stage, but it’s our culture how we listen to, reward and develop our people that determines whether we can truly seize the opportunity.
We’re lucky in the West of England. The West of England Growth Hub offers practical support to help creative organisations scale from access to finance to leadership mentoring and business development through programmes like Create Growth and the Creative Sector Growth Programme. At the same time, the Good Employment Charter provides a clear framework for what fair, progressive employment looks like: secure work, flexible working, wellbeing, employee voice and development. Signing up (it’s free) signals to both clients and teams that you’re serious about building good jobs and great workplaces.
Both initiatives point to the same truth: creative growth doesn’t just happen through funding or innovation; it happens through people who feel heard and valued.
While we can’t dictate what the Treasury does next, every creative organisation can take practical, affordable steps to strengthen culture, attract talent and improve retention.
The question is…why it matters now? The creative economy runs on people freelancers, collaborators, studio teams. But amidst client pressures, deadlines and tech change, it’s easy to lose sight of the human infrastructure that keeps the work flowing. While the national conversation focuses on budgets, our local conversation in Bristol and local areas can focus on something even more powerful: how we build workplaces people want to stay in.
So as the Budget headlines fade, here’s a challenge for creative leaders in the region:
Because growth doesn’t start with policy it starts with people who feel seen, supported and proud to create where they belong.
As part of ADLIB‘s ‘Design for All‘ series, they speak with Martin Underhill, a digital accessibility consultant with a background in user experience design and frontend development. Until recently Martin was Accessibility Lead at Sage, a FTSE 100 company where he where he built a thriving accessibility discipline from scratch.
Here he shares how accessibility became central to his career, how he promotes inclusive design at scale, and practical tools that build empathy and capability across teams.
My name is Martin Underhill and I am a digital accessibility consultant. I help organisations embed accessibility in their teams, products, and processes so it becomes a lasting part of how they work.
I’ve just finished up as Accessibility Lead at Sage, where I spent five years working with about 11,000 colleagues across 23 countries and more than 40 flagship products, as well as internal platforms and digital communications. I led a team of six, spanning auditing, design focused accessibility, code specialists, community engagement, and generalist support.
I started my career as a freelance designer and frontend developer, and I quickly learned to simplify the user interface so I could deliver on time and give clients value; in doing this, I improved the overall user experience. That habit of starting with a minimal viable design before adding complexity led me naturally toward accessibility.
Later, as an interaction designer in UK government, I helped teams meet WCAG 2.1 AA. I worked from accessibility audit reports, coached developers to write more semantic markup, and demonstrated screen reader use. That is where my design and frontend skills came together and set my path in accessibility.
Inclusion sits at the centre of everything I do; accessibility is part of inclusion, but my goal is broader. I want everyone to feel they can engage with accessibility, even when they’re unsure or resistant. The door stays open because inclusive products are in the best interest of every user.
At Sage, my role was as an internal consultancy across many product teams and disciplines, including design, development, content, QA, product ownership, and project management; that approach informs how I work with clients now.
Because our core team was small we grew a network of Accessibility Champions and a wider community. We ran:
A recurring challenge is misconception and fear. People often worry about saying the wrong thing or think accessibility is brand new and impossibly complex. My approach has been to focus on a welcoming culture where questions are safe and mistakes are part of the learning process. If someone uses unhelpful language, for example “people suffer from disabilities,” I follow up privately and tactfully and introduce the social model of disability, explaining that people experience barriers created by poor design, not by their impairment. But I also think it is important not to write someone off just because they start from a problematic position.
If we want an inclusive culture in the broadest sense, that means including people we disagree with, even those who might initially be dismissive or ableist. Often, those people are worth talking to the most. You do not change minds by shunning people, you change them through conversation, respect, and showing them real world examples of barriers and solutions. Some of our strongest allies began as sceptics, and seeing that transformation is one of the most rewarding parts of my job.
During my time at Sage, we introduced Empathy Labs to give people a safe and structured way to understand different experiences. Labs included visual impairment goggles, motor impairment gloves, and software based colour vision simulations such as red green colour blindness. These sessions could have been controversial if they trivialise disability, so we were sure to frame them carefully; the purpose was to understand barriers and improve design.
For this year’s GAAD our Champions network ran a day of Empathy Labs across seven or eight offices, including Newcastle, Dublin, London, Manchester, Barcelona, and another office just outside Barcelona. We invested in simulation kit and licenses for all offices. Getting them shipped into Europe, even to Dublin, was surprisingly hard, but worth the effort. Engagement jumps after these sessions and we see membership rise in our channels and groups. Champions can now mobilise labs for next year’s GAAD and for awareness moments such as International Day of Persons with Disabilities and Purple Tuesday.
That experience showed me how powerful empathy exercises can be when they’re framed correctly, and it’s something I now draw on when helping clients build their own awareness activities.
I learn best by doing. I use CodePen to write small HTML examples, then run a screen reader to check whether what I hear matches what I see. Books, articles, talks, and conference sessions are valuable, but hands on learning sticks. An at home empathy lab, even a simple one, helps you build real intuition for barriers and better design choices.
Inclusion is about openness. The more you engage people, through empathy exercises, hands-on testing, or conversation, the more they’ll want to be part of the solution. That’s when accessibility stops being “someone else’s job” and becomes part of the culture; something I’ve seen in government, at Sage, and now in my consultancy work.
ADLIB’s Accessible Design Resources
Following the insightful recommendations from our Design For All participants, we’ve curated an extensive collection of tools, guides, articles, books, blogs, and videos. This resource is specifically designed to support accessibility and inclusion specialists at every stage of their journey.
View Accessible Design Resources
This blog previously appeared on the ADLIB Blog.
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