What changed after the boom and why so many freelancers are feeling it

I retrained in hair and makeup during the post-pandemic boom.

At the time, the industry narrative was everywhere. Studios opening across the UK. International productions choosing Britain. Film and TV described as one of the fastest-growing creative industries in the country. It was being talked about as stable, expanding, and full of opportunity.

That context mattered. I did not make a casual career change. I looked at industry data, read the trade press, spoke to people already working in production, and planned financially around the idea that this was an industry on an upward trajectory. Many others did the same.

Then the pandemic happened.

Then everything restarted quickly.

Then the strikes happened.

Then everything slowed again.

For a lot of people, especially those who trained during or just after the boom, it has felt like start, stop, start, stop. What is important to say here is that while work paused and restarted, the number of people training did not stop. People continued to qualify, invest in skills, and enter the workforce because all the signals still suggested long-term growth.

I am using film and TV as the clearest example here, because it is the industry I know best.

Before retraining, I spent over two decades working in film, television, and streaming. For the last few years, I have been inside those same production environments again, this time as a hair and makeup artist. That means I have seen the industry from different positions, over a long period of time, both before and after the boom.

What became clear very quickly is that the industry did not just grow in volume. It grew in complexity, pressure, and pace, without building the infrastructure needed to support the freelance workforce underneath it.

When production slowed or stopped, there was no reliable way for freelancers to pivot visibly, even though their skills were transferable and their experience was real. People knew work existed elsewhere — short films, commercials, branded content, e-commerce, theatre, music videos, corporate shoots — but finding those jobs depended almost entirely on contacts, memory, or being in the right place at the right time.

There has never been a joined-up way for people who need hair and makeup artists to discover who is available, where they are, and what they can do across different types of work. Discovery has been informal, fragmented, and heavily dependent on existing networks.

Below is a graph showing UK film and high-end TV production spend from 2005 to 2025, which I’m using as a simple visual indicator of how much work was happening over time and how volatile that curve has been.

This aligns with recent industry reporting. As The Week observed in October 2025:

‘Brollywood’ is booming, after years of struggle, thanks to Britain’s generous tax breaks and cheaper labour. 

That boom is real in terms of total production spend and headline activity. But what that headline doesn’t show is what it feels like on the ground when you’re freelance and trying to find work week to week. Big numbers might mean lots of production activity overall, but that isn’t the same as everyone being visible or accessible when it comes to getting paid work.

I do want to be clear about something important.

I was lucky. As a career changer, I trained at a college that is genuinely known for supporting graduates after they leave. Delamar Academy were exceptional in that respect. Some of my earliest opportunities came through that support, including unpaid work at the beginning that was genuinely valuable because it led to experience, relationships, and eventually paid jobs. That is how I ended up working on Hamnet.

But not everyone has that experience. Not everyone trains somewhere with strong post-course support. Not everyone has the same access, time, or financial buffer to take early opportunities and hope they turn into something later.

That context matters, because the issue is not a lack of work. It is that the way work is discovered and distributed has not evolved at the same pace as the industry itself.

Even when film and TV slows, creativity does not disappear. The problem is not ability or willingness to work. The problem is that freelancers are expected to navigate volatility on their own, without a reliable platform to stay visible, adaptable, and connected to paid opportunities across sectors.

This is not about blaming individuals or romanticising struggle. It is about recognising that when an industry grows quickly and repeatedly experiences disruption, informal hiring methods stop being enough.

That gap is what I am interested in fixing with HMU Collective. Not with noise or hustle, but with infrastructure that makes it easier for people to find work and easier for hiring teams to find the right people.

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Article:

Hooray for Brollywood: the UK’s film industry is booming — for now, The Week UK (last updated 3 October 2025).

Graph data source:

UK Film & High-End TV Production Spend (2005–2025) — Production spend used as a proxy for industry activity and volatility (graph created by HMU Collective).