Scotland’s film and television industry could suffer long-lasting damage if three specialist university courses are scrapped, with one senior industry figure warning the losses could be permanent.
The alarm has been raised over plans to axe creative courses at Scottish universities, with fears that the country could lose a generation of skilled workers at exactly the wrong time. Scotland’s screen sector has been growing steadily in recent years, attracting major productions and building a reputation as a serious player in the UK and international market.
But that momentum could be undermined if the pipeline of homegrown talent dries up, according to industry leaders who say the timing could hardly be worse.
The concern is not just about student numbers. These courses carry decades of accumulated knowledge, specialist equipment, and industry connections that simply cannot be rebuilt overnight once they are gone. Shut them down and you are not just losing a course, you are losing everything that was built around it.
Scotland has been quietly carving out a strong identity in film and TV production, with locations across the country regularly appearing on screens both at home and abroad. Productions ranging from big-budget international projects to homegrown drama series have been using Scottish crews, Scottish talent, and Scottish expertise. That ecosystem depends on a steady flow of trained professionals coming through.
Universities across Scotland have been under serious financial pressure, with rising costs and funding gaps forcing institutions to make difficult decisions about which departments survive. Creative arts courses have found themselves in the firing line at several campuses, seen by some administrators as expensive to run and harder to justify in purely economic terms.
But those making that argument are missing the bigger picture, critics say. The economic contribution of Scotland’s screen industry runs into hundreds of millions of pounds and supports thousands of jobs. Strip out the skilled workforce and that contribution starts to shrink fast.
Industry bodies have been pushing back hard against the proposed cuts, arguing that short-term savings at university level will create far bigger costs down the line. If Scottish productions cannot find the crew and technical specialists they need locally, they will either bring them in from elsewhere or choose not to base themselves in Scotland at all.
There is also a cultural argument that goes beyond economics. Scotland has its own distinct stories to tell, its own voice in film and television, and its own creative traditions. Nurturing that takes investment in education, in training, and in giving young people from all backgrounds a genuine route into the industry.
For students currently on these courses or thinking about applying, the uncertainty is deeply unsettling. Many chose their university specifically because of the specialist programmes on offer, and the prospect of those being cut mid-study or disappearing before they can apply is causing real anxiety.
The broader pattern of creative course cuts at Scottish universities has drawn criticism from across the arts and culture sector. Music, drama, fine art and now film and television have all seen programmes threatened or reduced in recent years, raising questions about the long-term direction of higher education in Scotland and what it values.
The Scottish Government has faced calls to step in and provide clearer protection for creative education, given its stated ambitions for growing the screen sector and the wider creative economy. Whether that intervention materialises before any final decisions are made on the courses in question remains to be seen.
For now, the message from those working in the industry is straightforward. These courses matter, the skills they produce are not easy to replace, and once they are gone the damage could take years to undo, if it can be undone at all.