Talent Executive

Company Description

Reporting to: People Director, FMUK

Location: Stephen Street, London

Contract: 6-month interim contract  

Type of work: Hybrid working (3-4 days in office)

About Fremantle UK

Creating the Extraordinary, Together.

Fremantle UK is one of the UK’s leading creators, producers and distributors of world-class entertainment, drama, film and documentaries. As part of the global Fremantle group, we develop and produce bold, distinctive content that reaches audiences across the UK and around the world.

From award-winning entertainment formats such as Britain’s Got Talent, The Apprentice and Too Hot to Handle, to critically acclaimed dramas including The Responder, starring Martin Freeman, and internationally celebrated films such as Yorgos Lanthimos’ Oscar-winning Poor Things, Fremantle UK is home to some of the industry’s most recognised and talked-about programming.

Our Purpose

We are driven by a shared purpose of Creating the Extraordinary, Together. We tell stories that connect people around the world, reflecting and celebrating the diversity of the communities we serve. Through compelling and irresistible entertainment, we aim to engage, inspire and create meaningful cultural impact.

To achieve this, we bring together talented people from all backgrounds, experiences and perspectives both within our teams and across our productions. We are committed to fostering an inclusive culture and creating opportunities for diverse talent in everything we do.

Role overview

The Talent Executive will provide a central talent and crewing capability across FMUK, working closely with our production labels and the wider People Team to support the recruitment and engagement of production talent.

This is a new, hands-on role designed to bring greater coordination and consistency to activity currently managed across individual production teams. The Talent Executive will take overall leadership of Talent Management, working particularly closely with TalkbackThames and Naked, providing practical support to crew productions while building stronger talent pipelines, creating talent pools, and improving visibility of freelance talent across FMUK.

Alongside day-to-day production activity, the role will help develop a more proactive approach to talent attraction, outreach and inclusion, building relationships with external partners and creating opportunities to identify and engage a broader range of talent.

The role will also play an important part in the implementation and adoption of a new contracting system, helping ensure the platform develops not simply as a contracting system, but as a valuable tool for talent management, workforce planning and production recruitment.

Job Description

Key Responsibilities

1. Production Recruitment & Crewing

• Partner with production teams to understand upcoming crewing requirements and provide practical support in identifying and sourcing talent.
• Proactively identify potential crew for upcoming productions and hard-to-fill roles.
• Build strong relationships with production management teams and establish earlier visibility of anticipated recruitment needs.
• Support a more proactive approach to crewing.
• Maintain relationships with freelance talent and provide a positive and consistent experience throughout their engagement with FMUK.
• Facilitate the sharing of talent across labels, identifying opportunities to move between productions where appropriate.
• Work closely with the People Team and production colleagues to ensure recruitment and engagement processes are followed consistently.

2. Talent Pipelines & Workforce Planning

• Develop and maintain central talent pools across key production disciplines and roles.
• Build greater visibility of freelance talent, including skills, experience, availability and development potential.
• Identify recurring skills gaps and hard-to-fill roles and develop appropriate talent pipelines in response.
• Use available data and market insight to identify talent trends and inform future recruitment activity.
• Help develop a more joined-up approach to talent across FMUK, increasing visibility of opportunities and talent between labels.

3. Outreach, Inclusion & Industry Partnerships

• Support the development and delivery of FMUK's talent outreach and inclusion strategy.
• Identify and build relationships with relevant industry organisations, training providers, education partners and talent networks.
• Develop initiatives that broaden access to opportunities and strengthen pipelines of underrepresented and emerging talent.
• Coordinate outreach activity across FMUK to avoid duplication and maximise the impact of external partnerships.
• Support appropriate communications and engagement activity to strengthen FMUK's presence within the external production talent market.
• Identify opportunities for FMUK to engage with new and emerging talent communities.

4. Systems Implementation

• Act as a key Talent stakeholder during the implementation and development of a new contracting system.
• Work with relevant teams to ensure recruitment and talent requirements are reflected in system workflows and processes.
• Support the creation and maintenance of meaningful talent pools.
• Help drive adoption of the platform across production teams and encourage consistent ways of working
• Support the development of useful talent and workforce reporting.
• Use data to improve visibility of recruitment activity, talent pipelines and future workforce requirements.
• Help identify opportunities to improve processes and system efficiency

5. Key Relationships

• Production Executives and Production Management teams
• Heads of Production and senior production stakeholders
• FMUK People Team
• External industry bodies, training organisations and talent partners

Skills & Experience

We are looking for someone with strong knowledge of the television production landscape who understands both the pace of production recruitment and the importance of building long-term relationships with talent.

• Significant experience of production recruitment, crewing, and talent management.
• A strong understanding of freelance production roles and how productions are crewed.
• An established network within the production community, alongside the ability to develop new relationships quickly.
• Experience of sourcing talent across a range of production disciplines and levels.
• A demonstrable interest in talent development, outreach and inclusion.
• Strong relationship-building and stakeholder management skills.
• The ability to balance immediate operational priorities with longer-term talent activity.
• Strong organisational skills and the ability to manage multiple recruitment requirements simultaneously.
• Confidence working with systems and data and using insight to improve ways of working.
• A collaborative approach and the ability to work effectively across different production labels and teams.
• Experience of implementing or working with freelancer management, applicant tracking or talent management systems would be advantageous.

Personal Attributes

• Proactive – identifying talent and future requirements rather than waiting for vacancies to arise.
• Connected – comfortable building trusted relationships across productions and the wider industry.
• Collaborative – able to work across labels while recognising their individual identities and production needs.
• Inclusive – committed to broadening access and challenging reliance on established networks.
• Pragmatic – comfortable working in the fast-moving reality of television production.
• Curious – interested in emerging talent, changing skills requirements and new approaches to finding and developing people.
• Delivery focused – able to turn strategy into practical activity and measurable outcomes.     

Measures of Success

During the initial six-month period, success will include:

• Establishing an effective central talent and crewing service that is valued by production teams.
• Improved forward visibility of upcoming production recruitment requirements.
• Development of central talent pools for priority production roles.
• Evidence of increased sharing of talent and insight across labels.
• Reduction in reactive recruitment and retrospective contracting.
• Successful integration of talent requirements and workflows into eTribez.
• Development of an FMUK talent outreach and inclusion plan.
• Establishment of relevant external partnerships and talent pipelines.
• Clear recommendations for the future FMUK Talent operating model based on demand, outcomes and insight gathered during the initial period.

Additional Information

Our benefits include generous company pension, summer Fridays, audience tickets, employee assistance program, access to free courses and training, EV scheme, cycle to work scheme, season ticket loan and volunteer days.

If you need any of this information in a different format or would like to suggest a different form of application, please contact FMUKHR@fremantle.com  

Fremantle is part of RTL Group, a global leader across broadcast, content and digital, itself a division of the international media giant Bertelsmann.

For more information, please visit Fremantle.com, follow us @FremantleHQ or visit our LinkedIn and Facebook pages.