We were on threads and saw this questions about residencies. So we shared a few links and then dug through to compile this.

Deadlines are real and current as of 18 June 2026 when we did this list which includes 26 opportunities that are open now, a list of opportunities that will likely reopen later this year and a further detailed one including opps that may reopen early next year are all in a spreadsheet.

🌍 = Open to international candidates
🇪🇺 = Open to EU candidates
🇬🇧 = Open to UK-based candidates
🇺🇸 = Open to US-based candidates
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 = Open to Scotland-based candidates

⏳ Closing soon

Onassis ONX and ACE Summer School: a platform for all visionary professionals eager to materialise their innovative concepts and build the worlds they aspire to. Summer school takes place in Athens. 🌍 Deadline: 21 June

Material Research Fellowships: Candidates with a thorough artistic practice in material research are welcome to apply with an existing project to further develop during an 11-month residency at the Jan van Eyck Academie. The fellows will receive a monthly stipend of €1,750 and an annual working budget of €2,250. 🌍 Deadline: 24 June

The Centre national de la danse x Cité internationale des arts residency programme open to choreographers of all nationalities, working and living outside of France. Includes a grant for living expenses and production grant of 1,500 EUR 🌍 Deadline: 24 June

Shay Youngblood Fellowship x Take World Lisbon, in association with the New York Times best-selling writer Veronica Chambers, will gift a stay at the Autumn 2026 retreat in Portugal. This fellowship focuses on womxn of colour/global majority writers. Queer womxn of colour writers are strongly encouraged to apply. 🌍 Apply ASAP

AI residency with Rick Rubin in Italy by Y Combinator. 🌍 No clear deadline, so apply asap.

Super Slow Way: artists of any discipline to work with local residents over the course of a year to help nurture connections between them and the natural world found along the canal corridor. The overall budget for each commission is in the region of £10,000 which must cover fees, travel, expenses and materials. 🇬🇧 🌍 Non UK residents are welcome to apply but applicants must satisfy all visa requirements. Deadline: 26 June

Pentabus Jerwood Writer in Residence 2027: Fully funded year as writer-in-residence with rural touring company Pentabus, playwrights only. £12,000 bursary. 🇬🇧 Deadline: 29 June

EASE: Crete 25 funded opportunities for UK-based artists venturing labs in Crete. Each lab brings together five UK artists, and local Greek participants alongside climate scientists, archaeologists, geologists and community partners to work side by side on the ground. 🇬🇧 Deadline: 29 June

Push the Boat Out non residential programme to support the creation of new poetry-led work, responding to the work of Iain Hamilton Finlay, the gardens at Little Sparta and this year’s festival theme The Space Between. Each artist will be paid a total of £2500 for three weeks of work, which includes the residency, rehearsal and development time, and the two performances. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Deadline: 29 June

No Jobs in the Arts x BACKLIT, Nottingham are offering one small studio space entirely for free for 9 months for an early-career creative to experiment and explore new ideas. Inderrepresented artists and creatives living or working close to Nottingham city centre are encouraged to apply for this opportunity. 🇬🇧 Deadline: 29 June

The Emergence Art Science Fellowship Amsterdam opportunity invites artists, makers, and collectives to propose new commissions for the Emergence Festival 2027. Selected projects receive a production budget of up to €20,000 including VAT per project, research support, curatorial support, and a festival presentation in Amsterdam. 🌍 Deadline: 30 June

The Centre for Curatorial Leadership (CCL) offers leadership training for art museum curators from all art historical specialties for a programme based in the US. For full-time senior and/or established curators working in art museums in North America and abroad. 🌍 Deadline: 30 June

Next Stage+ project: group residency from 14 to 16 September 2026 at Butiken in Hörken (Sweden) open for producers working on a freelance basis within the performing arts. 600 EUR residency fee; per diem, travel and accommodation (including international travel to and from Stockholm and inland travel to and from the residency place; including additional night in Stockholm on 16 September if needed). For applicants active in Hungary, Greece, Germany or Ukraine. Deadline: 30 June

Residency on the management of cultural heritage and the transformation of museums and exhibition centres: Enables cultural practitioners from countries on the DAC list to stay with host institutions. Includes a net payment of EUR 1,500 per month and other support. 🌍 Deadline: 30 June

Banff Centre: Pay-to-stay on paper, but apply for the in-app financial aid to help cover it. Program runs Jan 2027. In Canada, but open to international candidates 🌍. There’s an application fee and if you are accepted into the program, you must obtain a Visitor Visa to enter Canada. Next deadline: 30 June

✨ These postings take A LOT of time to compile which is why we have paid subscriptions. If you don’t want to do that, liking and sharing this post goes a LONG way!

Tukums UNESCO City of Literature International Writer-in-Residence Programme.: Writers, poets, playwrights, and screenwriters connected to UNESCO Cities of Literature are invited to apply. Includes a scholarship of €800 for a four-week residency, or €400 for a two-week residency 🌍 Deadline: 30 June

Sangam House: Warm, community-minded month in India, room and board covered, for published writers without big commercial success. 🌍 Deadline: 30 June

Art Omi: Writers: Cohort residency with shared meals and exchange, lodging and meals free (travel isn’t). $15 to apply. 🇺🇸 Deadline: 1 July

Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize: A prize, not a residency — but winners get a fully funded spot at the Alpine symposium (travel + accommodation). Theme is “Joy”, max 1,250 words. £3,000 top prize, £10 to enter. 🌍 Deadline: 1 July

Read more

We’re talking roles from CNN internships to senior-level positions, roles at Spotify, curatorial roles at galleries, theatre director gigs — we go wide so you don’t have to.

If you work in the creative industries at any level, there’s something in here for you.

A heads up on the freelance briefs: some of these need a response in a day or two, so get moving ⌛

This is what 20+ years of networking gets you. We hear about it, you hear about it.

3 things before you scroll:

1. A FREE online workshop on getting a role that pays nothing but might be the smartest career move yet

2. We’ve partnered with NXT GEN: AWITA x All About Art for a membership swap. ILN members register here, NXT Gen members here.

3. Join us for a FREE IRL event in London, 30 June

Here’s a sneak peek of what’s inside:

• TED x POSCA Global Artist Residency: four artists, $15,000 each, working on “visible mending” in their own communities.

• Last day to apply to The WBD Access Unlock Unscripted programme for mid-level unscripted producers who aspire to get to the next level or gain exposure in different genres of reality television. Open to UK and US applicants 🇬🇧🇺🇸

• AESOP - Graphic Design Industrial Placement

• Candoco Fellow: Opportunity for a D/deaf, disabled and / or neurodivergent creative professional ready to step into leadership

• 📖 Shay Youngblood Fellowship: a fully funded writing retreat in Portugal

• £3000 bursary and mentoring with Channel 4 Writing for TV Awards 📺

• 🎥 BFI NETWORK@LFF: professional development programme that supports early career writers, directors and producers working towards their debut feature film.

• No Jobs in the Arts x BACKLIT free studio space to early-stage creatives

• Up to £40,000 to visualise a research network’s findings

• The YA Foundation is looking for Communications Board Members to join.

• 🎵 Last chance to enter the F-List x Youth Music

• Paid publishing mentorship 📖 for underrepresented talent

• Final call to enter the Lovie Awards.

  ---

✔️ONE session only for 1-1 Coaching
🎓 If you’re a uni student, you can apply for a free membership here
🔗 Let’s connect. We’re also on IG, LinkedIn, TT and Threads!

⌛ Vibecoding Night, MOXIE, London, 17 June

⌛ Talk: Visual Poetry with Derrick O. Boateng, Apple, London, 18 June

⌛ AvA IRL: NYC, AvA, New York, 18 June

The Museum of Youth Culture opens its doors to the public this Saturday!

Cannes Lions 2026 unofficial event list: 50+ networking events across the advertising festival. Cannes, mid–late June

Making Tax Digital — Free Workshop for Freelancers: The way you submit self-assessment is changing. Join Journo Resources and Taxd to get it right the first time. 22 June.

Sunderland’s Music Conference: a full day of panels, workshops, interactive sessions and live performances from those within the music industry. Free, 20 June

Hatch Sales & Marketing Level Up Lab: three free online sessions for under-30 founders. Deadline: 22 June

Cultivating Practice, Connection and Community: a session that will consider how practice is built over time, how community shapes creative work, and how writers find connection amid what is often a solitary process. Online, 22 June

How Today's Best Tech Companies Grow: Join Mallory Contois, Community GTM Lead at Lovable and Founder of Old Girls Club, for a conversation on how the best technology companies are approaching growth today. 25 June, Online.

East London Heritage Photo Walk & Talk: ticketed photography walk through Stratford, London. 25 June

Acrylicize x JOY 2026 50% discount with code JOYFRIENDS. 25 - 26 June

ID Conversations: Seke Chimutengwende + Tim Etchells, Independent Dance, London, 26 June

Moving Forwards Mentoring Scheme: Sign up for a one-to-one call with a working journalist in your area — talk through career questions and get insight over a cuppa. In partnership with the Journalists’ Charity.

Community Call Out for Chisenhale Dance Space to help shape the next chapter. London, 30 June

Connecting Culture Continued: culture-sector gathering to discuss collaboration and placemaking in the ever-changing cultural landscape in Bradford. Free, 30 June

BookTok Late: a celebration of BookTok, creators and reading. London, 2 July

The Halley x AEI Music Summer Party London, 2 July

How to Submit Your Manuscript and What Happens Next: learn about publishing, make connections and find out all the intricacies and secrets of the submission process. London, 9 July

Female Founder Fundamentals: a free six-week course for women starting or growing a business.

West End LIVE: a weekend of outstanding performances from top West End musicals, live and free in Trafalgar Square. 20-21 July

Onassis ONX and ACE Summer School: a platform for all visionary professionals eager to materialise their innovative concepts and build the worlds they aspire to. Deadline: 21 June

Read more

We already share opportunities across the board on our roundups BUT this is your initial guide to the city, with spaces to go, opportunities, jobs and events to get stuck in.

📣 If you’re in or around Edinburgh and have things to add or want to meet people there, please drop it in the comments!!!!

Until then, join us online or IRL in London.

And we are still accepting pitches for newsletter contributors.

Edinburgh by Cynthia

Edinburgh has a reputation for being beautiful, very touristy, and…slightly intimidating.

On the surface, it’s all Georgian architecture, ancient closes and Scottish history, and visitors photographing every corner from every conceivable angle. Locals sometimes avoid the overcrowded city centre like the plague as soon as August and the world-renowned Edinburgh Festival Fringe enter the scene.

But if you spend some proper time here, you’ll discover something underneath: a pulsating layer packed with designers, writers, filmmakers, photographers, musicians, game developers, architects, and creative entrepreneurs.

Edinburgh’s creative scene isn’t defined by scale, but by proximity. My favourite thing is that it is small (and walkable!) enough that you’ll keep bumping into the same people, but large enough that new opportunities appear every week. The result is a creative ecosystem that feels surprisingly connected, and the key to making meaningful connections here is consistency over visibility or numbers. Show up regularly, contribute to the community, and people will remember you.

Living here, I’ve discovered that newsletters like The Edinburgh Minute (daily), Cinetopia (weekly), and The Good Egg Project are essential for staying on top of local news, new openings, all sorts of events, and job openings. Groups like Edinburgh Social! Discord and A Nice Day Out on WhatsApp are great for mingling with people with similar interests, and they tend to organise regular meet-ups on books, films, and fun stuff like playing baseball or learning sword fighting!

If you’re new to the city or simply looking to expand your network, here’s where to start.

CULTURAL SPOTS & VENUES

The Filmhouse and The Cameo. Two institutions for the film enthusiast. The Filmhouse reopened last year, with a new cafe where post-screening events and film festivals take place. The Cameo is a beautiful 1914 building with an atmospheric bar to spend some time before or after the movie, and also hosts a monthly film pub quiz (which I once won!)

Summerhall Arts. Dedicated to offering artist opportunities and programming outstanding exhibitions and events year-round, this art charity also offers residencies, artist development, and spaces for hire.

Argonaut Books. We are spoilt for choice with libraries in this town. Most of them host book clubs, writing workshops and book launches - but this independent bookshop in Leith is also well known in the creative community for recently having fought and won against the opening of a massive WH Smith just meters away from them.

Out of the Blue. A multi-disciplinary space in which you can visit an exhibition, have something to eat or drink, attend classes, film screenings and workshops, or enjoy their monthly flea market. There’s something for everyone.

Creative Scotland. They support the cultural and creative sectors across all parts of Scotland as a development organisation, a funder, an advocate, and as a public body that seeks to influence others to increase opportunity and maximise the impact their resources can offer. Apart from their job and opportunities board, they also publish The Illustrated Freelancer’s Guide, a complete and updated practical resource for creatives working freelance in Scotland that you can pick up for free in selected bookshops and venues or download.

Creative Edinburgh. Another must if you’re a creative living here. Their objective is to protect the welfare of the creative community through services for creative freelancers, sole traders and startups to allow them to develop and thrive. Their job board is also unmissable.

WHALE Arts. Since being set up by local people in 1992, it has firmly established itself as one of the cultural anchor organisations for Edinburgh. As a community-led arts charity and social enterprise, their mission is to be the creative heart of a vibrant, thriving community. They also support a network of local community cinemas around town.

WHERE TO WORK & HANGOUT

Feeling artsy? Come to my neighbourhood, Leith, full of independent shops, good coffee, bakeries and the good old man’s pub with someone yelling on the door even if it’s just 11 AM.

Feeling fancy? The backstreets of the New Town have surprising galleries and delis, and they’ll lead you to another beautiful neighbourhood: Stockbridge. Fancy a bit of sea? You can choose between the fisherman’s Newhaven or just take a quick bus to Portobello, with its promenade, bookshops and charity shops. Marchmont and The Meadows can be quite studenty but also loved and very well maintained by their long-term locals.

All of these neighbourhoods are very well connected to each other and have lots of options for coffee shops to work from, local libraries and even parks (if it’s a sunny day and you feel like a change of scenery) to sit and write.

Libraries: Edinburgh has some beautiful public libraries to work, read, or simply admire their architecture, the most renowned being the Edinburgh Central Library. I am a big fan of public libraries as third spaces, and all the activities they offer to their communities, so having a library card has become essential for me.

SWURF. A free coworking app founded by Edinburgh local Nikki Gibson that has since expanded its “work-surfing” network across the UK. The app helps remote workers, freelancers, and digital nomads find welcoming, vetted venues to work from, offering benefits such as guaranteed Wi-Fi, plug sockets, and exclusive food/beverage discounts.

Tribe Porty. A creative coworking space in the heart of Portobello’s seaside community. They also run creative and entrepreneurial mindset events, perfect for anyone reimagining their working life.

Custom Lane. Located in The Shore, one of the most scenic areas of Edinburgh, this coworking space is nestled on the ground floor, adjacent to the public-facing exhibition space and café. Their custom desks offer a base for focused work in a welcoming, creative environment.

The Melting Pot. A membership-only space, it offers co-working spaces but also very interesting events to connect with other creatives and propose new ideas.

Edinburgh Futures Institute. One of the most beautiful and dark academia buildings in the city, the Edinburgh Futures Institute is housed in the former Old Royal Infirmary, which was originally built and completed in 1879. I’ve heard this place mentioned a lot amongst people looking for a nice and quiet space to work.

EVENTS

Coffee mornings and co-work add-on with Habits. Brown’s of Leith is already one of Edinburgh’s newest and coolest spaces, and so this isn’t a formal networking event. Think of it like starting your morning in a room full of interesting people. 18 June

Digital Creativity and Fair Access: Edinburgh Workshop. This hands-on workshop brings together artists and creative practitioners to reflect on how they present and promote their work in digital spaces. Rather than teaching fixed methods, the session focuses on real experiences. 22 June

Coffee Connections Edinburgh Start your morning with great coffee, good conversations, and even better connections. This is one of Edinburgh’s most popular in-person networking events. 24 June

Cinetopia Film Networking Night. 25 June

Co-Work Club Edinburgh. Hosted by SWURF, perfect for solo work or bring a colleague/friend for a collaborative vibe. And they promise unlimited coffee and pastries! 30 June

Creative Circles: Pitch Yourself - Personal Branding for Creatives. This event is a free, casual monthly meetup for creative freelancers who want to learn, grow, and connect. The theme this month is to help creatives overcome “the ick” in self-promotion, to get noticed, book the work they want, and get paid their worth. 7 July

JOBS, OPEN CALLS & OPPORTUNITIES

Events Coordinator - Edinburgh Printmakers. The Events Coordinator is the first point of contact for all prospective clients, meeting groups and individuals, and takes care to consider their needs and the logistics of each unique event to ensure they run smoothly. It offers an exciting opportunity to help grow Edinburgh Printmakers as a vibrant cultural and business hub for Fountainbridge, as the area around us continues to develop. Salary: £26,228

Director of Programming and Engagement - Dunard Centre. The Dunard Centre is a once-in-a-century building, and this is a unique opportunity to shape its programming, both on and off the stage. Our vision is to create a ‘Hall for All’, and to dothis by building our learning, community and education initiatives into our programming from the outset. Everything is engagement, and everyone is our audience. Salary c.£60,000 FTE per annum, full-time.

Co-ordinator & Director - The Traverse Theatre. The Traverse is looking for an experienced Co-ordinator for its flagship Class Act programme to oversee the delivery of the project and provide effective leadership and efficient project management. Pay: £16.50 per hour, part-time for 100 days a year.

Communications Officer - Built Environment Forum Scotland. Leading on the communication activities of the organisation, BEFS Communications Officer will work closely with the team to strategically amplify the sector’s policy interests and ensure their role as a trusted and informed sector voice is reflected visibly across all our communications channels. Salary: £30,000 FTE, part-time; 30 hours per week

Creative Producer / Associate Producer - Singing willows. A new creative company in development working across theatre, art, and music. They create books, music, performances, workshops, and theatre shows for young audiences. They are currently developing a new inclusive children’s musical theatre show, with a professional work-in-progress performance planned for July, followed by performances at Fringe. Rate: £18 per hour with potential to review as the project develops. Part-time.

Programme Coordinator - Astar Media. Astar Media is recruiting a Programme Coordinator to support the delivery of multiple national screen and creative programmes, working with trainees, production partners and stakeholders across Scotland. This role will work across a portfolio of projects, including Opening Shot, a new national screen sector initiative, and elements of FilmG, supporting delivery at different stages of each programme. Salary: £29,000 – £36,000, full-time.

Push the Boat Out, Edinburgh’s International Poetry Festival, is looking to support the creation of three new poetry-led performance pieces, responding to this year’s festival theme: The Space Between. Artists will be paid £1,500 for their commission, including presentation of their work at the Festival, and additional bespoke support to develop the work will be provided by NTS.

Edinburgh City of Literature is accepting submissions to ‘Six Minute Reads’, a flash fiction competition marking Scotland’s National Year of Reading. The prize is £150. Deadline: 19 July.

If you liked this, please drop a ♡ and share!
It helps a LOT and costs zero 💸

💭 Tell us in the comments: which cities should we cover next? What did we miss?

This is a bonus edition.

As you know, I attended SXSW London for the first time. I wrote about my own thoughts on SXSW and beyond here but, in true I LIKE NETWORKING spirit, I think some of the best things that came from it was meeting people

I know, what a shocker. ln such a huge conference that was too spread out IMO, it is impossible to see everything you want to see.

That said, I practiced what I preach and did a TON of research on the panelists ahead of time. I also accidentally crashed the background of this interview in my pink and red trousers.

I don’t know how many of you did, or didn’t go so today I am sharing:

1. Reads and recaps from SXSW

2. A list of some of the most interesting people I saw/met that I think should be on your radar. You can follow them, create alerts for the companies you’re interested in and see what else they’re up to and continue to expand and build your own network. I also created a spreadsheet. This is as close as I can come to doing your networking for you :) This is a SELECTION, of course. You are welcome to go through all the speakers yourself.

The Recaps

1. My own recap and longer thoughts on process x AI

2. A quick Film London recap and another one from Billboard

3. I missed this panel with Rose Wang. I had wanted to see her speak since this interview but HR covered it: Bluesky’s newly-launched AI tool, Attie, is designed to help users curate their custom, personalized feeds according to their own interests — again, to help drive the community-first ethos Bluesky is so proud of.

4. Why Saatchi & Saatchi Moved Its New Creators’ Showcase to SXSW London: relocating from Cannes Lions and expanding its remit beyond film to include music and new forms of creative expression.

5. On the Global Co-Production model in film. Good reflections for those in the UK screen sector.

6. Most of the criticism I heard from people who have been to SXSW London and Austin matches what this post says. I’ve only been to this one, so I can’t compare it but I (Isabel) personally thought that the festival could be smaller and more compact, allowing for more interactions. I’d be curious to hear anybody else’s opinions!

7. I enjoyed this recap from a fellow Brazilian (who I do not know). She says “the week kept returning to the same question: what happens to the things we outsource, the structures we trust, the systems we depend on, when they stop working for us? And what do we build instead?“

8. One must note that all this happened. Variety reported on it.

9. Keep an eye out on their channels as they will likely upload some of the talks. We posted as much as we could on TikTok including a quick chat with Mae, who runs ERIC and co-hosts the Female Founders Rise podcast.

10. I enjoyed talking to the people at the Adobe stand at SXSW London. We’re Adobe Express ambassadors and they helped us better get to grips with the image generation. Here’s me networking with…myself. But as I write this Adobe’s Residencies at the V&A are now open for applications! They will

    employ three full-time Residents for 12 months.

The People: Visual Arts & Design

Melanie Lenz — Curator of Digital Art, Victoria and Albert Museum (Visual Arts). Develops the V&A’s digital-art collections. She was interviewed by Marine Tanguy, former ILN mentor.

Dr Rebecca Swift — SVP Creative, Getty Images. Rewrote Getty’s visual standards for how women, ageing and disability are represented in commercial imagery. Hers was one of my favourite lines of the week: just because you can do something quickly doesn’t mean you should.

Nad Chishtie — Founding Designer & Head of Design at Lovable, an AI tool that lets anyone build for the web.

Jaya Asokan — Fair Director, India Art Fair. She has worked in the U.S. and India across design firms, auction houses, and galleries. At IAF, she has expanded international participation, accessibility, and year-round programming, while championing craft and design. We realized early on as a team that inclusivity was a non-negotiable.

Music & Audio

Nainita Desai — Composer (film, TV, documentaries, games) We interviewed her at the festival. An Emmy-winning screen composer (For Sama, 14 Peaks) who is generous on how people actually break into screen music.

Anthony Achille — Emerging Tech & Strategy Lead, Abbey Road REDD (UMG) Backs music-tech founders and co-built Grow Music, the UK’s first government-funded music-tech support programme. REDD also showcased other music tech startups at SXSW.

Annabella Coldrick — Chief Executive, Music Managers Forum Leads the MMF and campaigns on fairer deals and creators’ income.

Read more

You can easily skim what you want through the sections (Visual Arts, Theatre, Entrepreneurship etc) and our jobs are also divided by type of work with a section just for freelancers.

😡 It always bothered us that most job boards are either in culture or in commercial side, and we think you should be able to see it all. You can be a creative project manager at a hospitality brand or in theatre.

We spend DAYS to do this so you don’t have to. You can find what matters and spend time crafting your application to whatever it is you want.

When you become an ILN insider, you get access to mentoring, our funding guides and a chance to win a NXT GEN membership! Applications for this one on are below the paywall.

For the price of one iced coffee a month, all of this is yours :)

How to keep rejected pitches alive

Lessons on creating your own luck

What fashion school doesn’t teach you

1:1 mentoring is extended until Friday💨 💨 💨

Only 2 coaching spots in June (and no more for a while)

A free ILN event? Yes please! Join us for A Game of Artworld Snakes & Ladders.

Making Motherhood Work: Building a Flexible Business Before, During and After Baby. Great, practical lessons for anyone, even freelancers with no kids.

Making time for creative work

Has social media failed humanity? (and how to sell your podcast to Netflix)

• This week ⏰ : Artist Crit is a chance to engage with your peers, sharing insights and perspectives about your creative endeavours. Or join Soho Works at the Speed Networking: Tech and AI

• Free events and courses such as The British Academy Ideas Festival, The 45-Minute Substack Launch Lab, The Writers’ Block programme for Emerging Playwrights, and the Sundance x TikTok online course for microdramas. Read more on vertical content here

• FUNDING 💸 opportunities, the Hugo Burge Foundation. Deadline: 31 July

• Tons of events for you to learn and network with, IRL or online. For One Night Only is the biggest UK-centric games showcasing the world-class games made by British studios and the UK’s status as a games industry, Gaming is a HUGE space for creatives, as per our latest gatecrashing edition.

• Hundreds of jobs, mostly with salaries, including these with The Old Vic and paid training schemes. From entry level roles to senior roles

• Plus: open calls, agents seeking submissions, pitching….

  Subscribe now

  🔗 Let’s connect: IG, LinkedIn, TikTok, THREADS , Website

Khadija Saye Photography Fellowship, a 12-month career development programme with the London Transport Museum. Freelance work on this programme is paid at a £130 day rate. Deadline 13 June

Read more

🔥 No fluff or gatekeeping 🔥

We spoke to a few people at SXSW London but we had the chance to do a much longer interview with someone whose career spans film, music and gaming.

Fresh off Cannes and speaking at SXSW, Nainita Desai is an Emmy-winning composer whose genre-spanning scores have made her a leading voice in contemporary screen music. She has amassed a multitude of awards and nominations, worked with Bertolucci and Peter Gabriel, and has SO MUCH wisdom to share.

Some excerpts from our convo are also in video, but we will be sharing more on socials as well as more from SXSW.

Quick reminder that we have tons of resources on careers like film and music here.

See you soon

💬 Let’s start with the dreaded question – “what do you do?”

I tell stories through music. I’m a film, television and video games composer.

Why did you decide to work in this field — or how did you come to it?

It’s a long, complicated story. My dream was always to be a composer — before I even knew what composing was. From a very young age I was very musical and very creative, but I also loved technology, and that forms a big part of what I do for a living.

I was born and brought up in London: British Asian, second-generation British Indian. During the week, I went to a Church of England school, which gave me a certain sensibility and aesthetic. At the weekend I was brought up as a Hindu and went to the temple. I’m non-denominational now, but because of that upbringing, I was exposed to music from completely different cultures. I studied violin and piano at school, but I also learned Indian classical instruments. And I loved film. Growing up, film was my window onto the world.

As a teenager I was obsessed with recording the sounds of the natural world. I’d carry a portable recorder around, recording everything and cataloguing it. That eventually pulled me into the world of sound design.

You studied mathematics! How did you get from there to film?

After my degree, I got a scholarship to the National Film and Television School (NFTS), which was an amazing experience. From there, I worked on big feature films at Pinewood, Shepperton and Twickenham, where I got to work with directors like Bernardo Bertolucci and Werner Herzog. I learned to work as part of teams, to be collaborative, and to understand the place of music and sound in film.

You then spent years as a sound designer. What does that actually involve?

As a sound designer, you’re putting sounds onto a film after it’s been shot. It’s a whole post-production process people aren’t aware of: everything you hear, footsteps, glasses clinking, spaceships, monsters, wind in the trees, is placed after the film is filmed. I dived into that for a couple of years and became established at it.

But my true passion lay in composition. I’d been writing my own music since I was a teenager, recording it in my own little home studio, but only ever as a hobby. It still never felt like it could be a profession.

Why didn’t it feel like a profession?

Because there weren’t people who looked like me doing what I do now. I loved film music — John Williams, Ennio Morricone — but they were all ‘old white men’. As a woman of British Indian heritage, it felt like it just wasn’t for me. When I was growing up there were literally only three other female composers I looked up to.

So you went into recording studios instead.

I love technology and sitting behind the mixing desk, so studios suited me. I gave up film and went into music as an assistant music engineer, and I got a break working for Peter Gabriel at his Real World studio complex. That exposed me to world music and to working with musicians, producers and engineers from all around the world. It was an incredible eye-opener, a dream to work in that beautiful, open, collaborative environment.

You’ve described yourself as a shy wallflower who hated networking. How did you land your first paid composing job?

It was never about going to parties for me, it was all about the work, and I felt uncomfortable networking. But I met a music supervisor who knew what I wanted to do. He gave me a break — a travel adventure series for Channel 4 — and asked if I’d write the music for one of the episodes. Nobody had ever paid me to write music before.

That’s my advice to other people: tell people what you want to do. Don’t keep your dreams inside. You make your own luck.

I know these are clichés you hear all the time, but I learned never to give up on those dreams.

My mantra has always been to throw myself in at the deep end. I took the job, spent all day and all night teaching myself, and forged my own process. What I didn’t realise at the time was that everything I’d done — sound design, assisting, music technology, being organised, being a collaborator in the film audio department — was the perfect skill set to be a composer. I sent the music off and the team loved it. That’s when I realised I was born to do this, and I’d found my home. It was the beginning of the next phase, moving from sound design into writing for film and television.

It was a bumpy road — but anything worth striving for is a bumpy ride.

Was there ever a point you wanted to give up?

There were times I thought I couldn’t afford to do this, no work, wondering how I’d pay for my cat’s food. But I never lost sight of the ambition. You need perseverance and tenacity.

Twenty years later, the roof over my head and the car I drive all come from creating something out of writing music — and from making people feel emotions. I suffer from imposter syndrome at the start of every project. Every project is a mountain to climb, and when you reach the top it’s so nourishing that you feel ready for the next one.

At the start I took on every project to pay the bills. Hundreds of projects later, you realise you’ve built a career.

Now I’m in the privileged position of thinking about what I gravitate towards, what connects me with filmmakers and audiences. I get the most fulfilment from working with teams for whom it’s vital to bring an important story into the world. For Sama was one of those — a film I worked on for two years, about a Syrian woman, a refugee, living through the uprising.

Being part of the team that brought that story into the world was deeply profound and transformative. I also gravitate towards stories about the natural world, drama and anything that pushes me out of my comfort zone !

How did you get into video games?

I became a BAFTA Breakthrough — a fantastic initiative where BAFTA picks people they feel are on the cusp of breaking through. I got it because of a documentary musical called Mumbai High, where I worked with children in the slums of Mumbai and wrote a musical that gave them agency to sing their stories to camera.

The Breakthrough put me on the radar of a lot of people. One was a games developer making something that was really a non-linear film — a hybrid of video game and film, quite pioneering at the time. He invited me to score it. That game was Telling Lies, and it earned a BAFTA nomination, which helped put me on the map in the games world.

And now?

I’ve worked on Call of Duty and a recent game for Electronic Arts. I’m working on another film-game, and on some AAA franchise games. Alongside that I’m working on film and drama projects and some immersive installations. What motivates me is working across different genres, always taking myself out of my comfort zone.

You’re at SXSW, you were just at Cannes. How do you approach networking now?

At a drinks reception it’s very easy to stand in a corner and not speak to anyone. I’m not afraid of just going up to people now, because we all have stories to share. Going to a festival is a great way in: I’ll watch some films and then I’ve got something to talk about.

My tactic is that I don’t tell people what I do for a living. I’ll speak to someone, listen, and ask them about what they do. Having curiosity about other people is really important and listening to their journey is inspiring. You can have an engaging dialogue for ten minutes. When they finally ask what I do, I feed them a little tease, a bit of information, and by then you’ve hooked them, because you’ve actually connected.

For instance, at Cannes I met the programmer of the Hawaii International Film Festival — we were standing in a queue for a film and got talking. Afterwards we exchanged details, and I thought, this is fantastic, because I know filmmakers who’d be perfect for her festival. By building a network — our own tribes — we help each other. It’s good karma. I don’t go in with expectations of getting something for myself; I go in thinking about how I can help solve other people’s problems.

I always say it’s better to be interested than interesting.

Yes. If you’re actually curious about people it’s a lot easier.

Who influenced you growing up?

Kate Bush was a massive influence: her uniqueness, her originality, her personality, just going out there and being totally herself. Marina Abramovic as well. She is the godmother of performance art; I saw the film The Artist Is Present at a festival and found it incredibly inspiring, and later got to meet her, by pure chance, at a Laurie Anderson concert.

Who would you love to work with?

That’s a difficult question, Isabel! I don’t want to single anyone out. But Coralie Fargeat, the French director of The Substance is doing incredible work. And Céline Sciamma is an amazing filmmaker. One of the most beautiful films I’ve ever seen is Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

The funny thing is there’s very little music in it — only three pieces, I think. There’s a scene where women are singing and clapping around a campfire on a beach, and everything that builds up to that moment makes it so powerful.

What would you tell someone trying to break into screen music?

It’s definitely worth joining the AWFC — the Alliance for Women Film Composers — there are well over a thousand members now.

In the UK there’s the Ivors Academy, worth joining if you’re a songwriter or composer, and in the US the SCL, with several thousand members.

But the most important thing is just to create.

Don’t feel you’re not good enough — just create and learn.

When I started out, my music was terrible. The more you do something, the better you get and the more you hone your craft. There are lots of online resources, but the most important thing is to write, express yourself emotionally and creatively, collaborate with other likeminded people and get your music out into the world.

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We’re skipping our own Substack queue to hit your inbox earlier this week because we’ll be at SXSW and didn’t want to leave you hanging.

So consider this your head start and get let us know what you want to know from the festival?? Also, can you let us know what you need to know about FUNDING? We’re working on something….

If you’re not at SXSW, but you’re in London, we HIGHLY recommend LGW. There are live tours and you can use the CHAT to meet up with fellow NETWORKERS

Anyway, grab a seat, find what you want, put it in the calendar and GO get it.

There are TONS of good things, pitching opportunities, jobs (remote, freelancing, internships), events and funds mostly with deadlines closing SOON!

Here are some examples….

• Applications for the Forbes 30 Under 30 class of 2027 are now live

• The Music is Black: Exhibition Trip + Music Festival

• Pitch to write for us

• Last call for 1:1 Mentoring

• KICK OFF in London

• £2,000 for a connection?

• A course examining how we might preserve and share queer histories

• Apply to join the Pinterest Creator Community

• An amazing list of UK book events

• Film, TV & Theatre Intern - London £26,000

• Raising money is not just for tech!

✔️There are TWO sessions only for 1-1 Coaching
📩 RSVP to our next events
🎓 If you’re a uni student, you can apply for a free membership here
🔗 Let’s connect. We’re also on IG, LinkedIn, TT and Threads!

Work From Trees: bring your laptop, snacks and yourself to sit in nature and work on passion projects, exchange thoughts and connect. 5 Jun, London

Impact Investor Office Hours: purpose-led start-ups can apply for a one-to-one meeting with an investor to gain advice. Online, deadline: 5 Jun

Lewisham Arthouse Open Studios: over 40 studios at one of Deptford’s most beloved artist-led spaces. Free, London, 6 June

In Situ: The Rising Currency of British Music: panel talk and Q&A surrounding how British music is taking over the global airwaves, and who is leading the way for the UK scene. Free, London, 8 Jun

Let’s talk MOTHERHOOD at work. Free event

Play A Bigger Game: level up your career with an evening of insights, talks, and strategies from industry leaders 9 June, Manchester

Level 1 Award in Enterprise Skills – for Creatives and Artists: a fully funded two-day course that offers opportunity to learn from leading industry artists and expert facilitators

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🔥 No fluff, no jargon, no gatekeeping—just practical advice from pros who’ve been there.

Gracie is a young entrepreneur with a non-tech background. She started a streetwear brand at 13 years old (!!) and is now leading REPORTI, a tech startup to make live events and public spaces SAFER. I met her at the Roundhouse Creative Business Accelerator and have kept tabs on her development. It is very exciting, a super useful tool and a wild journey so far. I am sure you will learn LOADS from it.

💬 Hi Gracie! Let’s start with the dreaded question – “what do you do?”

I’m the founder and CEO of Reporti, a safety tech startup for live events and public spaces.

The longer version is that I’m a designer and marketeer who’s now building a software startup. As a solo founder, I do a bit of everything. I could be filing VAT in the morning and sitting in the cupboard of a nightclub running analytics reports by the evening. In between there’s product strategy, sales calls, investor conversations, and the odd moment where you wonder if a normal job would be easier.

Reporti is a real-time incident reporting platform that connects people at events directly with the safety teams looking after them. It’s serious work, but I genuinely love it – and I always struggle to give a clean answer because no two days look the same. Designer, founder, safety nerd, perpetual multiple hat-wearer. That probably covers it.

You travelled to London, Tokyo, and New York researching public safety before building Reporti. What were you actually looking for – and what did you find that made you think “I need to build this”?

As part of my master’s at Royal College of Art and Imperial, I was very lucky to do fieldwork in Tokyo and New York. I went in through a cultural design lens, looking at what I could learn from design and society in different countries. Japan has this incredibly rich tapestry of art and design history, alongside some of the craziest cutting-edge tech.

The thread that kept coming up, everywhere I went, was people feeling unsafe in crowds and having no way to do anything about it. Everyone has a phone in their pocket. Why can’t we connect people who are trained and can help those who might need it?

Before Reporti, you ran a streetwear brand (Exotic Shirts). You’ve also done design strategy, illustration for The Crisis Response Journal, merch for a record label, … How does it all connect?

Exotic was so much fun. I started that brand when I was 13 and it taught me so much about building a business! We shipped to almost every continent and had skate and scooter teams across Australia and Hawaii; it was a real community, built from scratch.

I’ve always been drawn to multidisciplinary work: getting into the nitty gritty of marketing, strategy, and design and understanding how it all links together. Whether I was working for a global publication designing magazine covers, or running marketing campaigns for e-commerce brands, it always came back to the same thing: the user, and building a community around something real.

My master’s at the RCA and Imperial was perfect for that, because it pushed me to bring all those disciplines together.

If you were starting your career from scratch today, what’s one thing you’d do differently?

My career is still quite early, so I don’t have a huge amount to reflect upon yet. But I think I’d have tried to get some time inside another startup first. Being a founder means you learn so fast, but there’s also a lot you have to figure out in real time that you might have already solved if you’d embedded yourself in someone else’s business first. That said, I’m pretty happy with how it’s all going.

How does Reporti work?

Reporti is a web-based platform that connects the public with security teams at events. If you’re at a festival, sports match, or any live event and something goes wrong, you get out your phone, open a website, and send an SOS alert to the nearest staff member.

In our trials, that whole process has been under 60 seconds every time, from scanning the QR code to a member of staff picking up the report.

Everything is logged on the back end for compliance, trend analysis, and identifying recurring problems. We’ve designed it to be as frictionless as possible, no app to download, no forms to fill out, just a few taps. Someone who can help knows exactly what you need.

How much technical knowledge did you have before building Reporti? And how did you plug any gaps?

With a design background, you come in knowing a lot about user testing and systems design. I was also lucky that vibe coding had just taken off when we were building the first prototypes, so I could get really quick and dirty mock-ups to test with venue partners fast.

But when it came to actually building the product, I knew we couldn’t run fast and break things – it’s a public safety tool, so it needs to be built on the best foundations, in a scalable way. That’s when I brought on Zac. He’s an incredible software developer, a designer, a psychologist, and a computer scientist, and he brings this amazing depth to both the front and back end. We bounce off each other as designers, but his cybersecurity and technical foundations mean we’re building something genuinely robust and agile at the same time.

You won the Grand Prize at Imperial’s Venture Catalyst Challenge, plus the Digital & Finance category. You pitched at the Science Museum. What was that experience like – and any pitching lessons?

Pitching in front of an IMAX screen absolutely dwarfs you! I’d been well prepared by some fantastic mentors who did public speaking workshops and really helped me to understand how to hold myself in a room.

What I’ve found is that when you go into a pitch, you stop thinking about everything else and just lock in. The confidence comes from knowing your business inside out. When someone asks you a question, it’s really no different to chatting on a call with a VC or a mentor – you just know what to say. I genuinely enjoy those big moments.

My main advice: lead with confidence, hold yourself well, and don’t stress yourself up beforehand. Reframe it as excitement, the feeling is the same whether you’re nervous or excited before something big. And try to enjoy it, because opportunities like that are rare.

What’s the scariest part of being a solo founder right now?

It is genuinely you against the world, trying to prove that what you believe could be a life-changing tool is worth backing. You wear so many hats and you have to learn to tell your story in very different ways depending on who you’re speaking to and what room you’re in. Fundraising is harder as a solo founder, I can see that clearly.

But I also love it. I move really quickly. I know every single part of the business inside out. And I think the thing that really drives me is growth, learning, pushing forward, figuring things out. I see uncertainty as this amazing challenge.

Your best networking tip?

Stand near the free food (ha!)

Honestly, I think it’s always best to listen first. Let people speak, hear what they have to say, and then you understand how you can add value to that conversation.

3 recommendations

‘Good Bad Billionaires’ by the BBC World Service. It’s really interesting biographical storytelling about business people’s lives and their key inflection moments.

‘The Dose Effect’ by TJ Power. It’s about how everything – your mindset, your performance, your view on the world – is shaped by what’s happening inside your body and your environment. As a founder, you really have to look after yourself, and this is an accessible way into some pretty big concepts.

‘Eventful Lives’ by Dodge Woodhall. Some of the topics are pretty blunt and I don’t agree with everything people on the podcast say, but there’s something so valuable about learning from insanely ambitious people.

📲 On that note… how can people connect with you?

I’m on LinkedIn. You can find Reporti there too. Or drop me an email: gracie@reporti.pro.

❤️ p.s. Like it? Share it. Got a career question? Drop it in the comments
⏳ Upcoming events & workshops
✨ If you’d like to be considered as a guest for this series, go here.

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There are also 90+ jobs, MOSTLY with salaries — from internships at Sony, graduate schemes with Space NK, freelance roles coming straight from the recruiter, a role helping champion art education at £72,545 per annum and CEO roles. Because we think you should be able to get support and curated opportunities at any stage of your career AND see where you want to go.

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL!!

We have events and networking sessions that won’t make you want to leave early, and those that are said to be a gold mine to sell your services.

🥳 And our 1:1 mentoring is back.

Here’s what we don’t have: unpaid work. Dead-end links. A magic ball to tell you what’s happening with jobs because of AI. Best we can do is this:

1:1 mentoring is back!! 💨 💨 💨

Your weekly reminder that overnight success takes years (and some cold emails) to make

Arts Council England DYCP Round 24 is open (£2,000-£12,000)

💌 Want to start a newsletter? We pulled an Adobe Branding Guide for you. Read the post and then comment for a link to the guide. It’s free.

We spilled the beans on our journey and business model (and challenges) for

🚀 NASA Call for Creatives: call to filmmakers, documentarians, songwriters, storytellers, poets, and others to submit proposals to partner with the agency to share mission stories covering Artemis Moon missions, nuclear propulsion, aeronautics, and more. Deadline 30 June

New Blood: The Portfolios 2026 is open. Got a portfolio in design, illustration, animation, advertising, photography (or anything in between)? Put it in front of industry pros.

COOL places to work from in London

Two free events you should know about: Making Motherhood Work: Building a Flexible Business Before, During and After Baby and Careers Fair at Sarabande Foundation

Last call to the Arc’teryx x Ori Women’s Creative Grant. It will award one individual (or creative team) a place in Ori’s upcoming print edition and $5,000 in grant funding. In addition, one runner-up will receive an Arc’teryx Academy photography prize pack.

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So, no better time to announce our next three mentors offering 1:1 sessions Deadline to apply: 5pm, 12 June

Jade Nodinot

Associate Creative Director, Eulogy

Jade is a Creative Director with 13 years of experience leading teams and working across global campaigns and smaller, local projects within marketing and advertising. She works somewhere between strategy and instinct, paying attention to what people notice and what they overlook. She’s drawn to the edges — where culture shifts and ideas get messier and more interesting.

Who she wants to work with:

Jade is a creative hybrid, so she’s open to mentoring anyone curious about the creative, advertising or marketing industries — whether you’re just starting out, feeling overwhelmed, or thinking about a career change. She’ll probably be most useful to people working in or moving towards graphic design, production, creative or copywriting roles (rather than Fine Art or Theatre). But if you’re somewhere in that world and wondering what’s next, she wants to hear from you.

Suzanne Zhang

Digital Director, ModusBPCM

Suzanne is a digital strategist and cultural producer who spent the last decade working on digital, social and content strategy for the Design Museum and Barbican Centre in London, while also freelancing as a writer for arts publications. She now heads up the Digital Team at ModusBPCM, leading strategy across their client portfolio — social media, creative solutions, digital strategy and influencer campaigns. She’s worked with brands like Belmond and Rosewood Baha Mar across social, creative production, talent, partnerships and content.

Who she wants to work with:

Anyone looking to build a career in digital, agency, or the arts!

Korinna Williams

Co-Founder, Hype & Genius

Korinna is a cultural producer, creative industries strategist, and co-founder of Hype & Genius, a social enterprise protecting the future of creativity by tackling exploitation and raising standards across the industry. Hype & Genius has reached over 2,000 emerging artists and secured partnerships with Warner Brothers, Nando’s, and a growing network of music industry leaders. Previously, Korinna spent five years as CEO of Shadow To Shine, scaling the mentoring and employability charity from the ground up to global partnerships including Samsung, BP, and TATA. As a consultant, she has personally secured over £500K in funding and supported start-ups to raise £1.5M+

Who she wants to work with:

People who are building in the charity/social impact space and/or people who need support building corporate partnerships and/or start up founders who need funding advice.

How It Works

• You apply by telling us a bit about yourself and why you want mentoring right now.

• Our mentors pick one person to work with.

• You get dedicated one-to-one time with your mentor

How to Apply

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Here’s what’s on the menu this week: freelance gigs paying up to £470/day, jobs from paid internships to £120k senior roles and grants + opportunities worth your time across film, TV, creative entrepreneurship, fashion, theatre, music, dance, visual arts, design….

Most boards only look at one corner of the creative industries — either non-profit and culture or big organisations. We see the full picture. You could be producing exhibitions, but you could also be producing brand activations. We want you to see all the options so you can decide how you position yourself. Plus, whenever we can, we share who’s hiring directly so you can reach out, add them to your network, and eventually not need us anymore.

⚠️ Do this before you scroll⚠️

1. What are you focused on NOW? Is it a new job? Freelance work? Getting funding for your business or your independent practice? Focus on that while you scroll.

2. If job-searching, then start here

3. Choose ONE networking/learning event to attend. Online or in-person. Give yourself a chance.

✔️ Book NOW for June 1-1 Coaching and RSVP to our next events
🎓 If you’re an uni student, you can apply for a free membership here
🔗 Let’s connect. We’re also on IG, LinkedIn, TT and Threads!

DON’T MISS OUT ON THESE

East Bank Academy is connecting local talent with paid work in the creative industries as part of the Music Is Black Festival 2026. 16 paid creative roles are available this year (10 open now + 6 more launching this summer). These roles are designed to support young people kickstart freelance careers, build professional networks and gain hands‑on.

A new fund to support three entrepreneurs with £20,000 each, alongside expert mentorship

Last call to Building Archival Futures, a mentoring and skills development programme within the moving image archive sector.

🎧 Doors Open Music Business Fellowship: for independent electronic musicians who are actively making and releasing music, but who want to build sustainable income beyond gigs, especially by learning how to create music for film/TV, documentary, brands, and other media. Deadline: 27 May

Open Submissions: literary agent Jenny Bent is opening to new submissions for three days only.

Apply for up to £70,000 given to UK architecture and design studios for prototype development and second-stage design research in more sustainable supply chains.

AFF Breakthrough Artist Fellowship: for early-career visual artists providing time, resources, mentorship and artistic development to build sustainable creative futures.

Goalposts Grant: ⚽ up to £25,000 for grassroots football clubs or leagues

Clerkenwell Design Week: London’s leading independent design festival, returns with exhibitions, installations, talks and showroom events across Clerkenwell. Free to attend.

Panel Talk: How Can We Better Engage Men? – Not Bad For A Girl: a conversation on active allyship in the music industry. Thursday 21 May, 7–10:30pm, Defected Basement, Shoreditch

School of DC: two-week paid creative advertising placement for 18+ at Drummond Central, working on live briefs, workshops and shadowing. Deadline: 22 May

TWENTY-SEVEN Workshop: free creative writing workshop for women aged 27+. Deadline: 26 May

Last call for Speed Mentoring: Branding & Design edition.

CV Review for Journalists: free, confidential CV review and 1:1 discussion from senior industry experts for UK journalists and those with journalism-adjacent experience.

No Jobs in the Arts: creative coaching service for artists and creatives navigating careers in the arts.

Fashion Minority Report Careers Day: a careers event for those navigating the fashion industry without traditional connections. 26 May, London.

Free Cinema tickets to see Power Ballad. 26–27 May

Gain a fully-paid place on the LAST EVER Alt Funding School

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📣 If you’re in Manchester and have things to add or want to meet people there, please drop it in the comments!!!!

Until then, join us online or IRL in London at some of these events
And we are still accepting pitches for newsletter contributors.

Manchester by Millie

Outweighing its reputation for inclement weather is Manchester’s creative potential.

With so many points of inspiration - industrial history; it’s a destination for TV and film; music legacy; the bordering the Peak District - unsurprisingly, the northwest neighbourhood homes many pockets of vibrant community. And at the same time, Manchester has a way of uniting each one.

Perhaps it’s the second-city’s plethora of universities, or a combination of institutions and nicher microcosms of shared interest. One thing I have certainly learned is that, here, everyone’s welcome. Often, we dwell in the same parks, studios spaces, and life drawing classes.

Hosting zeitgeist events of late - from the BRIT Awards to Marina Abramović’s striking art showcase - have encouraged new disciplines to flourish in the postcode, and cemented others’ prosperity.

But there’s one commonality that sticks: in Manchester, we work hard. Not only for artistic opportunity, but for diversity, platform, and community.

The north is therefore a hotbed for start-ups, businesses, freelancers, poets, painters, actors, collectives, and grafters. We’re a colourful bunch, welcoming ripe practitioners with open arms.

As you’ll tell from this guide, there’s no gatekeeping in our city.

EVENTS

Friends In Fashion Manchester - Fashion Networking Party. 28th May
This event is designed to bring together creatives working all across the fashion scene, including, designers, photographers, stylists, models and more.

Filmmakers Networking Event. 1st June
A speed-dating-style event: you have 5 minutes to talk with someone before you move around so you get a chance to speak with almost everyone by the end of the night!

Poetry Corner at Art Club in Stockport. 3rd June
Art Club is a gallery, library, café, and darkroom, hosting a spoken word night every first Wednesday of the month. Open to pro poets and the word-curious alike, the event offers a safe space to gain feedback on prose, or pen a line in their independent zine.

Meet & Greet: Say Hello by Axis. 4th June
Founded in the North, creative platform and charity Axis are hosting another digital networking event this June. Offering practitioners the chance to show face (remotely), the meet-up is a chance to build connections and skillshare, ideal for those of us less suited to in-person events.

Independent Paper Show at Soho House. 9th - 10th June
A must-see for the writers, editors, and designers of this world, the Independent Paper Show will be hosted in central Manchester this year. Following stints in London and Zurich, this two day forum is your chance to “meet the most important producers, suppliers, and paper shapers” out there.

Middleton Fringe Festival. 15th June - 21st June.
Set in an unsuspecting Rochdale town, the Middleton Fringe Festival was recently announced by Culture Co-Op, promising a week of pop-up performances, live art, and market stalls. Taking over the streets, pubs, and cafés of the small town, it’s a free event to swing by and stay a while.

Manchester Small Press Fair at SEESAW. 3rd- 4th July
Set for two days of performance, publisher talks, and a celebration of some of Manchester’s finest independent publications, SEESAW will be hosting a summer press fair this July. In collaboration with Fly on the Wall Press and UNESCO City of Literature, the fete is not one to miss.

Process Manchester 008 at Joshua Brooks. Thursday 6th August
Process Manchester is an event series that was founded beneath the shared goal of uniting design communities. For its second edition, laid-back haunt Joshua Brooks will be taken over by a roster of design talent, speaking intimately on their careers, experiences, and working methods.

JOBS, OPEN CALLS & OPPORTUNITIES

UP NEXT Billboard Initiative. This initiative by Short Supply CIC platforms emerging artists by showcasing their work on billboards across the city, in collaboration with JACK ARTS. Running in quarterly cycles, the opportunity invites participants to submit artwork on a rolling basis, with a preference for “thoughtful, urgent, strange and political” designs.

Artist Takeover 2026 Applications. Factory International are running their Artist Takeover again this October, where one successful artist or collective will exhibit their work in the site’s colossal North Warehouse. The winner will also receive guidance from a production manager, plus a budget for experiments, realisation, and install. Deadline 1st June.

Film Exhibition Fund. Apply for up to £10,000 for support to re-build and reach new audiences. Deadline 19thJune

Manchester Animation Festival Open Call. Toasting all walks of filmmaking talent, from scriptwriting to character design, Manchester Animation Festival is world renowned. Despite its awards qualifying for both Academy Award and BAFTA status, submissions remain open to student and professional applicants alike. Deadline 31st July.

Manchester Mill Pitch Call. Manchester’s go-to independent media outlet, run by the people of the city. Editor Joshi Herrmann is always open to new pitches, commissioning features from many subject areas, on everything from corporation exposés to interviewing neighbourhood heroes.

Filmed Up Open Call. If you’re an aspiring film writer, videographer, director, or animator in the North West, HOME Cinema is looking for audio-visuals to showcase on its screens. Accepting short-films for its quarterly film viewing, the series invites filmmakers to show their work to a live audience, before allocating awards and offering friendly feedback.

Poetry Project Coordinator, Manchester Metropolitan University
You will work with poets, students and a wide range of partners to play a pivotal role in supporting poetry and literature events with Manchester Poetry Library that are open to all. Salary:£31,236 to £34,610 Pro Rata

Director of Culture & Creative Industries, Manchester City Council
Reporting to the Strategic Director (Neighbourhoods), you will act as Senior Responsible Officer for our Always Everywhere: Manchester’s Cultural Ambition 2024–2034, and lead delivery of the Manchester Creative Industries Strategy.
Salary: £111,669 - £123,071

Senior Creative Artworker, via CRAFT
You’re a Senior Creative Artworker with 7+ years of agency experience, specialising in luxury and FMCG packaging projects. You’ve built expertise taking concepts through to print production files, with proven ability in separations, finishes setup, and imagery management. £40,000 - £48,000 pro rata. 2 days work-from-home

Social Media Producer, CBeebies, BBC
You’ll be leading on social strategy for CBeebies Parenting, festivals and live events as well as bringing the nation's favourite CBeebies brands to life through social content. Salary: £48,000 – £58,000

Development Operations Manager, Manchester Camerata
You don’t have to have a classical music background for this position. We just want someone who is passionate about the impact of music and how it can transform lives. Salary: £37,000

Marketing Manager, Manchester Metropolitan University
This role is responsible for advancing the profile and reputation of the University overseas, through a wide range of international marketing activities. Salary: £35,608 to £39,906

Digital Account Director via CR
Salary: up to £52,000

Office Manager (Head of House) & Personal Assistant, Brave Bison
Be the go-to person in the office, creating a welcoming, supportive and professional environment for employees, clients and visitors.

INDEPENDENT SPACES

Pollard Yard, Ancoats. At the heart of Ancoats is a locale with industrial history built into its brickwork, with Pollard Yard home to 92x unique workspaces, utilised by local artists transcending a new working legacy. Whether attending an open-studio, or looking for your own space to rent, the site provides an ideal makerspace, fostering collaboration and community.

The Yard MCR, Cheetham Hill. A cultural hub, communal workspace, and performance venue located just north of the city centre. Bringing vibrancy to an ex-industrial neighbourhood with slow-fashion markets and resident exhibitions, it’s also home to The Yard Collective, a CIC “inclusive club” which you can enter for mentorship as a musician, artist, or other kind of facilitator.

SEESAW Space, Whitworth Street. On the surface, SEESAW is a (stunning) creative workspace. But beyond its affordable hot desking and co-working corners, the building hosts film nights, art showcases, print fairs, and offers accessible rates for anyone wanting to run a workshop in their upstairs space.

Queers in MCR. Queers in Manchester is a group curating a safe online environment for LGBTQ+ identities. Recommending in-person events, talks, and gatherings you can check out in the city, it’s also a great platform to promote an event you might be hosting. Drop them a DM and they’ll kindly share your poster with their 8K+ following.

Social Refuge, Ancoats. Another queer-friendly hangout is Social Refuge, the bookshop, coffee house, and bar, hosting monthly mixers, film premieres, and book signings for thems, theys, and gays, living locally. It’s both a welcoming spot for some typing in the day and meeting like-minded folk in the evenings after the studio.

Stockroom, Stockport. One of the newer venues to grace this guide is Stockroom. Within one space, you’ll find a library, a learning space, an archive, and a year-round roster of yoga classes, comedy nights, and exhibitions from local artists. It’s one to pop in when you’re in the area, but also to keep an eye on for the many open calls and opportunities they post on their socials.

Please drop a ♡ and a comment!

We wanna hear which cities we should cover and what elements do you want to see in it.

We scrolled to the ends of the world (and our networks) to bring you the links YOU NEED. All of this work was fuelled by cake, because last week was my birthday (!!) and I was a victim of the Mexican tradition “la mordida“ (i.e the bite).

Besides that, here’s what we have inside this newsletter:

• We have jobs from internships to heads of departments.

• We have awards for artists, entrepreneurs and creatives, such as £35,000 for 35 Artists

• We have agents and indie publishers waiting for YOUR BOOK submissions.

• We have networking events that don’t suck

• We have free access to events such as our speed mentoring and SXSW offers

• We have freelance roles straight from the source so you can expand your network (and eventually not need us anymore!)

Here’s what we don’t have:

• A quick fix that will solve all your issues

• Unpaid work

• A solution to overthinking

• We also don’t have enough friends watching Bravo. If you’re one of them, make yourself known. And/or come to our chat to discuss a meet-up at London Gallery Weekend.

• Care to learn this summer? There’s a Free Creative Fundraising Summer School at UCL and a project management course in Manchester

• Pitch without the Ick Recap. Are you coming to our next events?

• Both London Craft Week and Photo London are happening now. And we wanna know - who’s going to the Fitzcarraldo Editions Annual Summer Party?

• BAFTA Breakthrough is open again. It gives a platform to film, games and TV talent at that critical ‘breakthrough’ moment in their career. PS, we have a speaker on film at our Process London event.

• Get your small biz in Forbes

• I think this is one of the most gorgeous places ever, so if anyone is looking for a job in Banff, here you go.

• The Pour Over is a fully funded eight-week online programme for women of colour who feel called towards writing, creativity and a more expansive life — on the page and far beyond it.

• Bradford opened two funds !!!

• The Mayor of London’s disability arts festival are recruiting new members of the Advisory Group. They offer a stipend of £50 per hour to cover prep and meeting attendance for members who are unwaged, freelance, in education, in part-time employment, or in employment with a micro enterprise. Members can also claim up to £150 per meeting to cover access costs and expenses.

  Let’s connect: IG, LinkedIn, TikTok, THREADS and the website

The Arena & Friends Speed Mentoring a fun and creative twist on traditional mentoring across different creative disciplines. Deadline: 15 May

Pop’N x Color Vision Creative Fellowship - 10-week virtual mentorship for emerging creatives to gain creative exposure, mentorship, and real client experience. Deadline: 15 May

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If you couldn’t make it live (or want to re-watch, pause, and take notes), here’s the recording. The link will only be live for a few days, so catch it while it’s fresh:

👉 Watch the recording

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There are creative scenes in so many places!!

📣 If you’re in Birmingham and have things to add or want to meet people there, please drop it in the comments! This should be a space for you to connect.

Until then, join us online or IRL in London at some of these events

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This is the one newsletter I NEVER miss ! How do you find these things? - ILN Reader

Welcome back to The Snack — your quick and filling opportunities search. We handpicked 100 open calls, funding, freelance gigs of up to £450 per day, call outs and jobs with Es Devlin, WhiteChapel and CREATIVE ALLY that need YOU now. (p.s we have interviewed Phie here)

We spend a long time compiling these to ensure you can take action quickly without having to go through irrelevant opportunities.

This May, I did everything I tell you NOT to do, which is saying yes to too many things! But that means we have LOADS of chances of meeting up. If you’re in any of these, do say hi!

⚠️ Do this before you scroll⚠️

1. What are you focused on NOW? Is it a new job? Freelance work? Getting funding for your business or your independent practice?

2. Write that down and THEN go through these so you’re not overwhelmed.

3. I’d recommend choosing ONE networking / learning event to attend a month. Online or in-person. THE BEST opportunities usually happen that way. Give yourself a chance and BE in the room, invest in yourself. Especially since now is PRIME festival season, and gigs in events will be opening up.

✔️ Book NOW for May 1-1 Coaching and RSVP to our next events
🎓 If you’re an uni student, you can apply for a free membership here
🔗 Let’s connect. We’re also on IG, LinkedIn, TT and Threads!

DON’T MISS OUT ON THESE

BACKED BY CTRL+CREATE: two creative women will receive £500 each to develop their own projects.

UPDATED Pitching guidelines for UK publications

SPEED MENTORING: Branding and Design edition

Serpentine Arts Technologies launches the inaugural Future Art Ecosystems (FAE) R&D Fellowship: Art x Convergence. Applications are open for artists, curators, technologists and organisers, supporting early-stage creative research grounded in process, dialogue and shared learning. Four fellows (individuals or collectives) will each receive a £10,000 award, alongside travel and accommodation support for the London weekends, plus specialist seminars, workshops and structured peer learning through the cohort.

NEXT GEN @ Hearst 2026: Over 12 months, you’ll rotate across four key areas of the business working directly with senior leaders and gaining a front-row view of how a modern media business operates. Based in London, £27,500 + Benefits |

SOFIA COPPOLA SHORT FILM AWARD: $20,000 to produce a short film, mentoring and distribution of completed film on DCP+. There’s a fee to apply

One of our LOVELY community members shared this US job with us. “It’s a high-level Art Curator role at the American Art Museum!”. The US salaries make the UK seem so small - it pays $169,279 - $197,200 per year. Shall we share more US jobs here?

FREE Dance Leadership Course (London) Fully funded Creative Leadership Level 2 qualification from Creative Re-Work. Must be 19+, London-based, not in full-time education. From 12th May.

Are you passionate about pursuing a career in the arts? Art Fund is looking for participants between the ages of 16–24 to join the online Summer 2026 Work Experience Programme. Deadline: 12 May

Centre for Research presents a first-of-its-kind collaboration with the AA Visiting School at 1 Montague Street. The programme includes a book launch, an exhibition, 2 panel conversations, 4 workshops, a film screening, and a party. 12-15 May

Creative Solo Entrepreneurs and Freelancers Enterprise Development Programme is a funded initiative designed to support cultural and creative freelancers in developing sustainable, resilient practices. Deadline: 12 May

V&A Foundation Awards. Two fees-only awards for full time MA students. The award value is £17,350 and funding is for 12 months. Deadline: 13 May

Our Global London Heritage Trainees. For anyone looking to develop a career in the heritage, museums or wider arts & cultural sector. No previous experience is required. Pays London Living Wage. Deadline: 13 May

Open City: If you’re one of the individuals, groups, collectives or organisations planning to open up a building or run an event during the festival, then you are an Open House Festival contributor. From April to June, we will hold a series of online surgeries to support you with planning and running your festival open days and events.

Creative Boom Brighton: May Mixer 14 May

Dazed and Black Bear invite you to a special preview screening of Tuner, the new film from the Academy Award-winning director Daniel Roher. at both Genesis Cinema and Peckhamplex. 14 May

Marks Folio Night - London Portfolio Submission. 14 May

Symposium Open Call: Existing Otherwise (TVCE x BiGS) Trans+ Virtual Centre of Excellence and Birkbeck Gender and Sexuality invite submissions from researchers, artists and filmmakers. Includes a two-hour short film screening. Limited bursaries available for attendance as well. Deadline: 15 May

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🔥 No fluff, no jargon, no gatekeeping—just practical advice from pros who’ve been there.

We just dropped a guide on freelancing, so this week, we’re gatecrashing with someone who can help freelancers figure things out because she’s doing it!

On her newsletter, Lizzie breaks down how she’s making money and juggling more than one thing at once.

p.s if you’re an uni student, you can apply for a free membership here

💬 Hi Lizzie! Let’s start with the basics… how do you answer “what do you do?”

If it's someone in the industry who has a bit of understanding, I say I'm a freelance content marketer or I write content for SaaS/B2B businesses.

If it's someone who isn't as familiar with it all, I say I have my own writing business or I write websites for tech companies.

Honestly though, it changes depending on the context of the conversation and who's asking. I tend to go into a bit more detail afterwards if people ask what kinds of brands I write for and what it all involves.

How did you get to do what you do now?

I started out in marketing assistant roles when I left uni and then when I was 23 my ex at the time had the opportunity to move to Spain to teach English, so I went with him and started freelancing.

I gave myself a year to earn a stable income, but I surpassed my previous earnings from full-time roles and continued to freelance when I got back to the UK. leaned into my marketing days and focused on content for marketing agencies and martech companies. During the pandemic, I started working with a lot of ecommerce tech companies (because ecom obviously took off) and have continued to do that since.

If you were to start your career again today, what is one thing you’d do?

I would start "networking" earlier. I spent the early years very isolated, not interacting with other freelancers or anything. Everything really clicked into place for me when I joined a coworking space about 4 years into freelancing.

👣 How long did it take you for you to feel secure in your career path?

Do we ever feel secure?! Haha.

It took me a good 2 years of earning consistently every month to realise that it was do-able. But even now things can feel rocky if a contract ends or a client goes ghost.

You write a lot about building a freelancing career on your own terms. What does that actually look like day to day — how do you decide what "your terms" even are?

It takes a while to figure out what works for you.

For so long, I'd force myself to sit at a desk 9-5 every day because it felt like that's what I "should" be doing. But I realised that my brain pretty much switches off after 2pm so nothing good ever gets written then.

I now maximise my "productive" hours (which are different for everyone). On a day-to-day basis for me, I do heavy-lift writing work 8-12 and then in the afternoon I do calls, bits for Freelance Magic, or just hang out with friends, do DIY stuff etc.

How do you find clients?

The two main ways these days are referrals and LinkedIn.

I have built a huge network over the years, so I get a lot of referrals from other freelancers and brands I've worked with previously. I used to get a lot of inbound enquiries through my website, but that dried up a bit during the pandemic (although it's starting to pick back up again now).

Your best freelancing tip?

Always 👏 be 👏 marketing.

Even when you're fully booked, put yourself out there, stay visible, and connect with interesting people.

n.b we have a pitching workshop coming up!

In the age of AI, how do you think about protecting your work?

The kind of work I do goes beyond what AI can do. I do a lot of interviews with SMEs, creative thinking, and strategy, which is more than just generic SEO content (which AI absolutely can do well).

I think it's a good idea to never get too comfortable.

I'm always looking for fresh pivots or new services to offer based on what the market looks like at any given moment in time.

3 recommendations

I'd recommend my own podcast (lol) It's Fine, I'm a Freelancer and getting involved in communities like Happy Freelancers or New Kind Community. Also, join a co-working space if there's one near you!

📲 How can people connect with you?

LinkedIn, Instagram, or via the newsletter.

❤️ p.s. Like it? Share it. Got a question? Drop it in the comments
⏳ Our upcoming events & workshops and all of our guides
✨ If you’d like to be considered as a guest for this series, go here.

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This special edition of the newsletter is supported by SILQUE.

Silque brings hundreds of freelance opportunities posted by creatives on Instagram onto one, centralised website for everyone to access for free. All jobs are filterable by category (e.g. styling, photographer, production), location and more, saving job seekers hours of scrolling for their …

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There are a bunch of conferences and events happening so here’s what I’ve done.

1. Pulled together some discounts and freebies

2. Prepared a guide on surviving big networking events

3. Created a FREE LinkedIn guide so you can update your profile ahead of time

📍 Drop us a comment/ question if you need any more help!

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Really love what you're doing. I just got a commission I found here!!

Welcome back to The Snack — the nearly-edible version of your opportunities search. We handpicked 100 open calls, funding, freelance briefs, jobs that need filling now.

Plenty coming directly from our own networks, so you can access that. Quite a few senior + step up roles on this one.

We spend days compiling these to ensure you can take action quickly without having to go through irrelevant opportunities and jobs that don’t tell you what they’re about.

✔️ Book now for May 1-1 Coaching and RSVP to our next events
🔍 This is great: 64 places to search for image inspo
⏸️ No roundup next week as we have a special guide dropping and we need some time to find our next intern!
🔗 More good stuff on our website. We’re also on IG, LinkedIn, TT + Threads!

DON’T MISS OUT ON THESE

MPF a quarterly £4000 grant for artists, creatives, dreamers and innovators.

Is this the best job ever? To be a bad photographer in Iceland?

Born Ready Trainee Scheme

📱 The Snap Lens Lab provides hands-on experience of creating augmented reality, developing your knowledge and skills, and bringing your big ideas to life. The Lens Lab will take place from Monday 20 July to Friday 7 August. For 18+ year olds from underserved communities in London.

The BSC mentoring scheme 🎥 is designed to nurture young cinematographers.

Alt Marketing School — ILN Scholarship: a scholarship for the 12-week Positive Impact Marketing Certification. Pay-what-you-can model with limited fee reductions available.

Antigravity Academy’s INDIE INSTITUTE is a three-month virtual filmmaking intensive that immerses artists, filmmakers, and film lovers in the complete lifecycle of independent filmmaking while creating a robust community of collaborators.

Pixel Pathway is a free, industry-led training programme from the team at Residence Pictures and Coffee & TV for people wanting to work in post production, motion design or VFX.

Release Day: Join people around the world releasing their creative projects in a global firework display of creativity! A month-long program of practical tips, motivation, and accountability to help you bring your project to life.

Money makes the world go round – but how do we write about it?

QUEERAF scheme for emerging, student and underrepresented queer journalists to get published, receive mentorship, grow their craft and gain renown as a media professional who delivers critical, exclusive journalism.

Beatriz González x Young Creatives Tours at the Barbican

Arts & Health Hub: Artist Peer Group Monthly online space for artists to share work-in-progress and get feedback from peers. Free / pay what you can.

CVAN London X Creative United: Creative Learning Hub at Somerset House.

Being a Life-Long Mentor/Mentee in the Art Market. An event on mentoring in the art market — whether you’re looking for a mentor or want to become one.

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