UK Opens Training Bursaries to Cinema, Distribution and Games Workers

ScreenSkills, the UK's national training body for the screen industries, receives £1.6 million (roughly $2.2 million) of BFI National Lottery money for its bursary programme from April 2026 to March 2029, up from £1.5 million for 2023 to 2026, and writes film exhibition, distribution and games into the guidelines, Screen International reports. The bursaries cover training, equipment and software, travel, accommodation and access costs; ScreenSkills drew up the wider remit with the Independent Cinema Office, the Film Distributors' Association, the UK Cinema Association and games trade body Ukie. In 2025-26 it paid out 619 bursaries worth £497,000 (~$670,000), and distribution had no applicants at all in the last cycle.