UK film production spend hit £2.8bn in 2025, the highest figure since film records began in 2002, with overall film and high-end TV (HETV) production spend totalling £6.8bn.
The £6.8bn figure is a 22% increase on 2024 and the third highest annual spend on record. A total of 361 film and HETV productions shot in the UK, fewer than 2024’s 372, but spend was still higher, according to the BFI’s statistics.
Of the £2.8bn film spend, inward investment films contributed £2.5bn, a 35% increase on 2024; local UK films accounted for £193m, a 4% increase on 2024 and 7% of the total spend on film; and co-production spend accounted for £68m, a 14% decrease on 2024.
A total of 193 films went into production in the UK in 2025, two more than initially reported for 2024. The £2.8bn is a 31% increase on £2.1bn as first reported for 2024 (although subsequently updated to £2.3bn owing to delays in some productions reporting).
Last year, 96 local UK productions started shooting, up one from 2024. These included Clio Barnard’s I See Buildings Fall Like Lightening, produced by Moonspun Films; Shane Meadows’ Chork produced by 42, Unified Productions and One Shoe Films; Marc Evans’ Effi o Blaenau, produced by Branwen Cennard; and Carol Morley’s 7 Miles Out, from Cannon and Morley Productions.
There were 39 co-productions in 2025, an increase of 10 from the number first reported for 2024. UK spend on these co-productions was £68m, down 14% on the first reported figure for 2024 (£79.8m). A co-production which shot in 2025 is Sophie Heldman’s upcoming Berlinale premiere The Education Of Jane Cumming, a UK/Germany/Switzerland co-production, with Sylph Productions the UK producer.
Inward investment
The lion’s share of the spend in 2025 was contributed by inward investment films with £2.5bn from 58 features, down from 67 as first reported for 2024. Films classified as inward investment by the BFI that shot across the past year include Warner Bros’ Wuthering Heights, The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event, produced by the UK’s Neal Street for Sony Pictures, Warner Bros’ Supergirl: Woman Of Tomorrow, Disney’s Avengers: Doomsday and Amazon’s The Thomas Crown Affair.
The BFI qualifies an inward investment production as a project which is substantially financed and controlled from outside the UK, where the production is attracted to the UK because of script requirements, the UK’s infrastructure, or UK tax reliefs.
Inward investment across films and HETV combined delivered £5.8bn, or 85% of total UK production spend.
HETV
HETV production reached £4bn (59% of the total spend), an increase of 17% on 2024 and third highest annual spend since tax relief was introduced in 2013. A total of 168 HETV shows started shooting in 2025, 13 fewer than first reported for 2024 (181).
Production data for HETV includes 14 feature-length single episodes, with a combined UK spend of £279.5m. These long-form productions are captured within HETV data, as opposed to film, because they applied for certification as HETV to access HETV tax relief. To apply for the film tax credit, a project must be able to demonstrate intention for theatrical release.
Spend on inward investment shows accounted for 81% of the total with a spend of £3.26bn, a 16% increase on 2024’s £2.82bn. These included Apple’s Slow Horses, Disney’s VisionQuest, Starz/Sony Pictures Television’s Outlander: Blood Of My Blood and Warner Bros Discovery’s Harry Potter.
HETV co-productions accounted more than four times the amount first reported for 2024 (£20m), and the highest amount of coproduction spend since the introduction of HETV tax relief. These included two UK-Germany co-productions; Big Talk and ZDF’s Ludwig and Balloon Entertainment and ZDFneo’s Counsels.
Local UK HETV production spend was £688m, 17% of total HETV production spend, and included BBC’s Blue Lights and Silent Witness plus Channel 4’s A Woman Of Substance and Sky’s Prisoner.
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