Autodesk's Matthew Jeffery

What we have seen is the re-emergence of the bedroom programmers, the small development outfits and the creative talent there. Again, many of the people we could look at in the UK are leading in terms of their creativity, and what they're able to produce.

That might be on social network gaming, mobile devices and so on - in many ways that's a key way forward for the industry, and it's great that since we last spoke, whereas before people really had set choices about how they'd come into the industry around working on a big, triple-A project, now they can set up their own company and really get into social games. And when those social games take fire, millions of people can be playing them.

So there are a lot of possibilities for creative talent out there in the market place; it just takes that energy and dynamism to go out there. The big players do support and publish this material as well, if that's the route that the small companies want to go down.

I'd completely agree with that. It's about creativity - content is king, and some of the stuff we're seeing, be it through mobile, Xbox Live, social media or Facebook gaming - it's cutting edge. It's entertaining millions and that's what you want to see. Some of those creatives out there studying courses, that's the beacon for them - they can look at full-scale triple-A production, or social, small-scale development.

That seems to be the feedback that's coming through. It's difficult for any government, with the pressure about tax breaks - and no doubt, that if tax breaks were forthcoming then other countries would react and change their fiscal position... and where do you stop?

It's difficult for any government to be able to focus on any one industry, and with that Budget it was trying to target a number of industries; the creative industries - and particularly gaming - can really leap forward. We've seen the film industry flourish, and hopefully we can see the games industry do the same, with smaller developers leading the way.

It's not an easy decision, but the good thing is that with the likes of TIGA and UKIE both promoting the industry to the government, they're both making steps forward. We saw that with PEGI, with messaging - the government is listening, there's more access there, and people like Ed Vaizey and George Osborne are taking personal interest. All of that leads to a stronger position for the industry.

It's interesting - if you look at the whole talent pool, particularly graduates, there's still a lot to be positive about in terms of the skills. The real challenge we face is that we have to - as an industry - step back into a graduate's shoes. When they're taking that decision about A-levels or other higher education and thinking about what they want to do, what industry they want to work in, if they choose games it's a case of looking at which degree they study for.

With some of the government proposals we know that some courses could cost up to £9000 per year, and naturally a number of universities will charge that - which in turn makes it more difficult for others not to charge that, because of the status question.

So a graduate will be looking at £27,000, plus costs on top of that. When we talked in 2008 a graduate could emerge from university with around £25,000 of debt; we could now be looking at £40-50,000 of debt that they have to repay.

That makes it more important for them, when they look at a course, to make sure it will be the best opportunity for them to get a job and progress in the career they want. As industry, we need to step back and think about which the best courses are and which ones can be recommended. If students are going to come out with that level of debt, we need to be able to advise them what to do next.

Students at the moment don't have the best visibility into this - they can go to their careers advisers and ask them what the best course is to get into games; the good thing it that we obviously have Skillset, but there are ten courses accredited and over 140 courses out there.

As part of Skillset we recognise we need to accredit more, but not lose the quality in doing that. But are we saying that the other 130 courses aren't worthwhile? A number of them are; but a number of them you wouldn't recommend sending your children to. It's pretty tough.

I'd agree with you - but we also have to look at the remit of Skillset, which is focused on gaming qualifications and degrees. But when you look at it, the industry hires from a wider population than that. At the moment, I'd say from experience, that the best computer science students could be coming from Manchester or Imperial - that have high quality and brilliant value for the games industry - but they're not within the Skillset accreditation at this stage.

If you look at art, if you look outside of the UK - particularly at the likes of Gobelins and Supinfocom in Paris or Film Academy in Germany, which are three of the best art and animation schools in the world - it is sometimes bizarre to go to those schools and see the likes of Pixar, Dreamworks and Sony all trying to recruit them. It's often people not from the UK going across to recruit them.

Again, I would question some of the recruitment tactics of some of the companies in the UK, when you've got some of the best film and animation students within Europe close by. There's no visa situation to complain about within the European Union, but there is great talent.

So, when we look at the whole Skills Review, let's include Europe, let's include those people studying computer science and maths and physics - because they're all coming into the games industry, while we're focused on the headline figures from the 140 games courses.