The future of talent pipelines into games | Playable Futures Podcast

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Episode six of the Playable Futures podcast assembles a panel of experts to tackle the challenges and opportunities of the industry’s talent pipeline, and how the sector finds itself at a crossroads in terms of future proofing recruitment for the medium and long term success of the sector.

Next Gen Skills Academy co-founder Marcia Deakin, UKIE head of education and Digital Schoolhouse director Shahneila Saeed, and Futurlab head of people Keira McGarvey join Will Freeman to discuss the future talent pipeline for the games industry and how we join the dots between industry and education.

You can listen to the episode in the player below or download the file directly here – and scroll down for some of the episode's highlights.

Despite there being numerous high-quality university courses geared around industry specialisms, the industry repeatedly encounters challenges filling junior positions, as well as a skills gap at more senior levels, too. This Playable Futures panel looks at what’s causing this and offers many positive and thoughtful solutions for the future and discusses how the sector will benefit from a wider and more diverse workforce.

A growing industry with mass appeal would, perhaps at first glance, seem like one brimming with opportunities, but it isn’t necessarily that simple, as Next Gen Skills Academy’s Marcia Deakin explains:

"We don’t have enough people with the right skills coming into the industry"

“The games industry has long had challenges with the talent pipeline. We don’t have enough people with the right skills coming into the industry… In terms of entry level roles, there are lots of people who want to come in and we