Why Running a Production Studio in 2025 Feels Like Surfing in a Hurricane (And I’d Still Paddle Out Every Time)

“Open a production studio,” they said. “It’ll be fun.”

And, to be fair, they were right. It is ace. Every single day is different, every week feels like an experiment, and half the time we don’t actually know what’s coming next -and that’s sort of the point. Steering a respected production company come studio through the wild world of advertising is honestly one of the coolest jobs around. But let’s not sugar-coat it - it’s not easy. It’s brilliant, chaotic, exhausting, and completely addictive.

We’re living through a funny time in the UK production world. On paper, things are booming. Ad spend hit £42.6 billion in 2024, which sounds like great news, right? But here’s the catch: most of that growth is happening online. About 80% of ad budgets now go to digital, social, and short-form work. That’s fantastic if you’re in the right place to grab it in Google ads etc but less so if you're creating premium content with proper budgets. Broadcasters have cut back hard; the UK TV production sector was down around £400 million last year. That means more production companies chasing fewer big jobs. Fun times.

For those of us running small to mid-sized companies, it can feel like being the little guy at the buffet - you can see all the good stuff, but the big players are already at the table loading their plates. We built Common People Studio on the belief that if you focus on talent, the work will follow. And we still believe that. But it’s getting harder to live by that mantra when the top-tier directors are scooping up mid-level projects just to stay busy. You know who you are and I’m not blaming you, everyone wants to work right?

The next generation of brilliant directors are here though - ready, talented, hungry - but the opportunities to prove themselves are few and far between.

When we’re pitching to agencies, I often find myself saying, “The only difference between our directors and the ones at the biggest houses is opportunity.” And I mean it. They don’t need someone to “take a risk” on them — they’re already very talented directors. But if we don’t engage these directors, we don’t find change, we don’t see anything new and we slowly lose the next wave of talent. They just need a door left open. But with mergers, acquisitions, and agencies pulling more work in-house, it sometimes feels like the doors are getting smaller and the queues longer.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. Far from it. This industry still has more life, more energy, and more passion than almost anywhere else. It’s like running a restaurant - you know margins are tight, costs keep rising, and the stress might kill you one day, but you do it anyway because you’re hooked. You do it for the people you work with, the rush of pulling off the impossible, and the weird joy of seeing something you made light up a screen somewhere. That feeling never gets old.

And look, running a business is hard. Anyone who tells you otherwise hasn’t done it. There are days where it feels like you’re carrying the whole world around in your head - the vision, the pitches, the next project that could make or break the quarter. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve sat up at 5 a.m., cup of tea in hand, worrying about taking a holiday. What if I’m not there when the big job comes in? That’s the kind of thought that only other business owners truly get.

But then I spend an afternoon with my five-year-old daughter, who doesn’t have a clue what a budget or forecast is, and it all resets. She’s in her own world, just being a kid, reminding me that life is bigger than the next brief or pitch deck. And honestly, that helps. It puts the fire back in my belly to keep going - to make the work better, to build something lasting, to keep fighting the good fight.

So yeah, 2025 hasn’t been the easiest year to be running a production studio in the UK. Budgets are shrinking, competition’s fierce, and everyone’s fighting for the same sliver of attention. But it’s still the best job in the world. Because even when the industry feels like it’s eating itself, we’re still out here making stuff that matters — telling stories, building teams, and chasing that buzz that only comes when an idea goes from sketches to screen.

All of this is part of the reason we recently moved from ‘FILM’ to ‘STUDIO’ – to find the stories however they are told; film, photo, exhibition, digital… or even, dare I say it, AI. With the recent successes of our FUTURE CREAT+VES team and our US team going from strength-to-strength, we feel more like a studio and act more like a studio. That’s probably more about necessity than desire but it’s all about pivoting to what the industry is looking for so you’re moving in the right direction.

And if you ask me whether I’d do it all over again? Absolutely. Because no matter how hard it gets, there’s still nothing quite like making beautiful, ridiculous, heartfelt, messy, meaningful things with brilliant people. That’s why we started. That’s why we’re still here.

And maybe, just maybe, the best way forward is to keep making the work we believe in and trust that the right people will notice.