A nationwide initiative brings together businesses and educators to attract diverse talent and address technical skills shortages across the UK print sector.
A new UK industry initiative named Print Tomorrow has officially launched with a mission to broaden access to careers across the print, communications, and visual media sectors. The campaign brings together commercial print businesses, educators, and industry professionals to help the sector attract, develop, and retain a more diverse talent pool. By widening access to career opportunities, the movement aims to equip the broader print and packaging market with the technical skills required for long-term growth and innovation.
The initiative addresses a growing demographic challenge across the UK print landscape. Although print technology has transformed rapidly to encompass data management, automated production, sustainable packaging, and digital communication, public awareness regarding industry career pathways has not kept pace. Consequently, two-thirds of print businesses currently report difficulties filling skilled vacancies, particularly across hybrid creative-technical, digital, and technical roles. With the average workforce age now exceeding 45 and many companies expecting to lose up to 40 per cent of their skilled staff within the next decade, traditional recruitment routes are proving insufficient to meet operational demand.
Print Tomorrow adopts a broad strategy to tackle these recruitment shortages. While existing programmes concentrate on school leavers and young people entering the workforce, Print Tomorrow complements these efforts by extending its focus to career changers, underrepresented demographic groups, and individuals from alternative professional backgrounds. The campaign focuses on raising awareness of modern print careers, supporting educational and community outreach, facilitating structured mentoring and networking, and enabling commercial print businesses to showcase technical opportunities to wider audiences.
Founder of Print Tomorrow, Elizabeth Bowerman, emphasised the necessity of reaching non-traditional talent pools, saying, “The print industry offers exciting, rewarding and future-focused careers, but too many people simply don’t know the opportunities exist. Print Tomorrow has been created to change that.”
Bowerman explained that the movement seeks to collaborate with existing industry frameworks while expanding career awareness across all age brackets, adding, “We’re not trying to replicate the excellent work already being done across the industry. Print Tomorrow exists to complement those efforts by reaching audiences who may never have considered print as a career option, whether they’re 18, 28 or 38. By bringing together businesses, educators and industry professionals, we can help open the door to a wider and more diverse talent pool. This isn’t just about attracting more people into print; it’s about ensuring the industry reflects the communities and customers it serves while securing the skills it needs for the future.”
Organisations and individuals from across the graphic arts, signage, and packaging sectors are invited to participate in the initiative. Commercial businesses can support the programme through community outreach, mentoring schemes, work placement opportunities, apprenticeships, and industry advocacy as the sector works to secure a diverse and resilient workforce.