Skillset

Wednesday 20th August/... Skillset, the Sector Skills Council for Creative Media, today announced further success at this year’s Edinburgh Interactive Festival in raising awareness of its careers service for interactive media.

The festival, which enjoyed a record turnout, showcased the UK’s best and brightest talent in interactive media. Now in its sixth year, the Annual Edinburgh Interactive Festival gave people the opportunity to learn from the computer and video games industry’s biggest players such as Nintendo and Sony.

Skillset Careers is the United Kingdom’s only industry led and endorsed careers advice service that specialises in providing a wide range of career services for the creative media. The service provides specialist careers information and advice via freephone helplines, tailored email advice, online fact sheets and job profiles, face-to-face interviews with experienced industry professionals, and workshops for careers advisors in further and higher education. Last year alone, thousands of people benefited from Skillset Careers’ e-mail and telephone information and advice, and nearly 400 people received direct face-to face support.

Kate O’Connor, Executive Director at Skillset, said that she was delighted that Skillset’s partnership with the Edinburgh Festival continues to grow from strength to strength.

“We have had a successful partnership with the Festival for a number of years now.

“Every year more and more people come to us looking for careers support and advice. Partnering with events like the Festival means that we can reach out to large sections of the industry – in ways that might not otherwise have been possible,” she said.

For further information on Skillset Careers, visit www.skillset.org/careers/ or call 08080 300 900 (England), 0808 100 8094 (Scotland) or 0800 0121 815 (Wales).

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Editors’ Note

EIF08:

The Edinburgh Interactive Festival is managed by a committee drawn from all areas of the games industry, including publishers, developers and the two industry trade bodies: The Independent Game Developers Association (TIGA) www.tiga.org and the Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) www.elspa.com.

Skillset:

Skillset is the Sector Skills Council (SSC) for Creative Media which comprises TV, film, radio, interactive media, animation, computer games, facilities, photo imaging and publishing. SSCs are licensed by the UK Government and by Ministers in the devolved administrations to tackle the skills and productivity challenge by sector. They are independent, UK–wide organisations, are employer–led, and actively involve trade unions, professional bodies and other stakeholders in the industry.

For all media enquiries, contact:

Nick Gowland

Email: nickg@skillset.org

Tel: 0207 713 9812 / 07 598 160802