Crews filming in Scotland told to hire locals as industry booms

While Scotland's screen sector is experiencing significant growth, only a small percentage of production staff are Scottish. Ardross Castle, the oldest star of The Celebrity Traitors, which premieres on Thursday night, is one of the highlights on the Scottish tourist board's "screen tourism" trail. From Outlander and The Odyssey filming in the Highlands and islands to Glasgow city centre standing in for New York and Gotham City in the latest installments of Indiana Jones and Batman, film and TV are becoming increasingly lucrative for Scotland.

The country's screen sector, which is growing year on year, is projected to be worth £1 billion to the economy by 2030. While some celebrate the benefits of this booming production sector, others point out the lack of opportunities for Scottish talent and the challenges posed by excessive tourism in featured areas.

After last year's finale of Celebrity Traitors, the BBC announced that the show had contributed £21.8 million to the Scottish economy since 2022 through employment, supply chain spending, and screen tourism, where visitors travel specifically to see on-screen sites in real life.

However, research by Peter Strachan, a documentary filmmaker and academic who founded the campaign group Standing Up For Scotland’s Screen Talent, revealed that only about 6% of production staff on series three of The Traitors were Scottish. This is concerning given that the production counts towards Ofcom quotas, which state that the BBC must use 8% of network hours and expenditure in Scotland. Strachan remarked, "This is the tip of the iceberg. We have found many other supposedly Scottish productions are failing to create jobs for broadcast freelancers in Scotland."