We are Breaking the class ceiling in the UK Creative Industries.

We connect young people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds with professional mentors, and work with employers committed to making the industry more open.

Find a mentor

Partner with us

Find career support

Our programmes match you with a professional working in your field. Get honest, one-to-one guidance and access to a network of employers who are genuinely invested in bringing new people through.

Whether you're looking for your first break or your next one, we'll help you find it.

See live programmes

Partner with us

We design and run structured mentoring programmes within your organisation. We train your staff as mentors, match them with a young person from our community, and handle everything in between, like recruitment, matching, training, and reporting.

Your team gets better at developing talent. A young person gets access they wouldn't have had otherwise.

Learn about partnerships

“I came out of the experience with a new found confidence. It’s made me feel as though although I may not have been given experiences growing up I am now able to create them for myself.”
Lydia Stathaki

The creative industries are one of the fastest-growing sectors in the UK economy..

Working-class people are more locked out of them than ever.

The UK creative industries contribute £124bn to the economy, growing at twice the rate of the wider economy.

Working-class representation in the sector has fallen from 26% to 19% in three years.

The creative industries employ 2.4 million people across every discipline and region.

70% of those jobs are never formally advertised.

88% of state school teachers don't feel equipped to support students into creative roles.

43% of creative industries employers reported skills shortages or gaps in 2025.

It’s barriers like these that create the class ceiling.

Our 2025 Impact

2,233

Mentoring Sessions

108

Job & Placements

1,525

Connections Made

292

Mentoring Pairs

Read the 2025 Impact Report

Stories from our Community

Featured

How to find your focus in the creative industries

Aum was pulling in several directions at once. Here's how his mentor Nikolaj helped him work out which ones were worth backing.

Learning to see your value

Liz joined the Sony Positive Influence programme not knowing if she had a future in the creative industries, here's how her mentor Grace helped her find one.

Gusto Film & Creative Mentor Network

Gusto Film shared their experience of mentoring with us on Break the Wall with their mentor Tom Staniford.

Jamie Beckford: Documenting my Mentorship

At the start of his programme Jamie, an aspiring documentary maker, was given the opportunity to travel to New York with his mentor to the DOC NYC festival. He shares his story with us of his experience there, the time on his programme, and the documentary he is working on.