Games development placement initiative
Help design the apprenticeship your studio actually needs.
Tame Studios is building a new apprenticeship standard for games development — shaped by studios, not written for them. Before anything is finalised, we're inviting studios across the UK to a short call about what you'd want from an apprentice, and what funding could already be available to help you take one on.
oskar@tamevents.co.uk
Where this comes from
We've spent the last two years opening doors in the creative industries.
Games are next.
Tame Studios started in theatre, producing socially engaged work for people whose stories don't often make it to the stage — including Unheard Voices, Unbroken Spirits, staged at the Edinburgh Fringe. That work is now growing into training and career pathways for people from lower socio-economic backgrounds across the wider creative sector.
Games development is our next step: a fast-growing industry with a well-known talent gap, and no shortage of people who'd thrive in it if someone gave them a way in. We intend to become an approved apprenticeship provider for the sector — but rather than writing the standard first and asking studios to accept it, we're starting with the conversation. That's what this is.
What we’re asking for
A conversation, before anything is written.
What it is
A 30-minute call about the skills, tools, and day-to-day work you'd want an apprentice to grow into at your studio — nothing to prepare, just your honest take.
What happens after
No commitment to take on an apprentice now. Studios who take part get first access to hosting one once the standard exists and candidates are ready.
What we do with it
Your input feeds directly into the apprenticeship standard we're developing, so it reflects what studios actually need rather than a generic template built without you
Why now
Apprenticeship standards are usually written first, then offered to employers. We're doing it the other way round, and we need studios like yours to make that possible.
The Industry Case
Why games studios are taking on apprentices at all.
The skills gap is well documented.
A 30-minute call about the skills, tools, and day-to-day work you'd want an apprentice to grow into at your studio — nothing to prepare, just your honest take.
Talent shaped around how your studio actually works.
An apprentice trained on your tools and pipeline tends to stay longer and fit better than someone hired in fully formed elsewhere.
Apprentices earn while they learn.
Training costs are substantially government-funded (see below), so growing a junior team this way costs a studio less than hiring fully qualified staff.
Access to people the industry usually misses.
Unpaid internships and portfolio-building costs quietly lock out talented people from lower-income backgrounds. Apprenticeships are one of the few routes in that pays from day one.
The Money Side
There's already funding for this, most studios just haven't used it.
0.5% of payroll, for any UK employer with a pay bill over £3 million, already goes into the apprenticeship levy — money many studios have paid in but never drawn on.
Up to 100% of training costs can be government-funded for smaller (non-levy-paying) studios taking on a younger apprentice, under current rules.
On top of training costs, incentive payments have been available for hiring younger apprentices (16–18, and some 19–24 groups), stacking on top of the training funding itself. Exact rates are being reformed through 2026, and funding is administered differently depending on where your studio is based: England runs individual employer accounts, while Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland fund apprenticeships through their own bodies (in Scotland, via Skills Development Scotland).
None of this is a substitute for checking current, exact figures for your studio — rules are actively changing this year — but the headline is worth knowing: for most studios, taking on an apprentice costs a lot less than it sounds like it should. We'll talk through what specifically applies to you on the call.
Behind the Program
Oskar Langley: A 3D Artist, turned Educator who was the Winner of ‘Lecturer of the Year’ in January 26 when leaving the SAE Institute - a private education university dedicated to Creative Media.
He has been the Program Lead of the UK’s first Game Art Apprenticeship program at RealityJam, having developed the first year of the SFT Program.
Oskar champions making Education accessible and believes that the Games Education Sector is broken - and is on a mission to fix it the wider Games sector of the UK.
If you want a say in how this gets built, please book in a call and we’ll create something great.