Australia Won the Work. Now it’s Time to Staff the Books.

As seen in IF.

Australia’s screen industry has spent the past several years proving it can win the work. International studios keep choosing Australian locations, the incentive framework is among the most competitive in the world, and local production volume has grown accordingly. Attracting the business, though, is only half of the equation. A government-commissioned study released this year points to a quiet problem sitting underneath all that momentum: the screen industry needs to ensure it has enough skilled talent to continue servicing the expanding sector.

The 2026 Production Infrastructure and Capacity Analysis (PICA), commissioned by Screen Australia and conducted by Olsberg SPI, confirmed Australia’s status as a world-class, globally trusted production hub, while identifying four structural pressure points that could constrain that growth: limited business scalability, persistent skills gaps, unclear career progression and infrastructure constraints. 

Within the report is a finding that deserves the attention of every financial controller and production accountant working across Australian and New Zealand productions: among below-the-line roles, Production Accountant sits in the top five hardest-to-fill positions, alongside Line Producer, Location Manager, Production Coordinator and Production Manager.

Warning Signs in the Data

The first warning sign in the report is structural. PICA points out that local production companies are often small and project-based, built to deliver one show at a time, not scale thefinance function across a growing slate of concurrent productions. In practice, that means the same finance teams delivering domestic slates are increasingly expected to manage multi-territory studio compliance, co-financing structures and tighter reporting cadences — without a proportional increase in headcount or in the training available to prepare them for it.

For an industry that measures its success in production volume and studio confidence, a finance function that can’t scale is a real constraint, not an abstract problem. PICA recommends targeted business development training, stronger links between academia and industry, and continuous upskilling as the way through. 

The second thread in the data is arguably more concerning for anyone managing a finance team long-term. PICA found unclear career progression and seniority gaps driven by high attrition and experienced cohorts ageing out of the workforce. For production accounting specifically, that’s a pipeline problem: the professionals who know how to run a compliant, studio-grade set of books are not being replaced at the rate they’re leaving the industry.

“Australia has done the hard work of becoming a trusted, world-class production destination,” said Liana Dubois, Managing Director, Australia and New Zealand at Entertainment Partners (EP). “But being chosen by global studios and being ready for the scale that comes with it are two different things. PICA has given the industry hard evidence of a gap we’ve been watching build for some time — and it’s a gap in people and capability, not just tools.”

Why Tools Alone Won’t Close the Gap

It’s tempting to treat this as a software problem — find a better platform and the capacity issue resolves itself. It doesn’t. A production accountant under-supported by training is under-supported regardless of which system sits on their desktop. A national skills shortfall isn’t solved by a product feature alone. 

PICA’s own recommendations make this explicit: the fix is training optimisation — micro-credentials, continuous upskilling, and closing the gap between industry and education — delivered alongside better infrastructure. The technology matters, but only as the platform that lets an already-stretched workforce work faster and with fewer errors, not as a replacement for the expertise itself.

Responding to the Shortage: Taking Enablement to Where the Work Happens

It’s this combination that Entertainment Partners is building its response around. Later this year, EP will launch an education and enablement program for production accountants and financial controllers across Australia and New Zealand, built around craft expertise and underpinned by SmartAccounting, EP’s accounting platform, and SmartPO, EP’s purchase order and payables solution.

The series, titled On Location: Smart Production Finance Management, is designed less as a product demonstration and more as a practical, hands-on training in the workflows PICA identifies as under strain — scaling a finance function across concurrent productions, managing studio-grade compliance and reporting, and building the kind of structured, transferable skill set that keeps experienced production accountants in the industry, where they are needed.

“This isn’t about which system you’re on today,” said Jill Hewitt, Entertainment Partners’ Director of Industry Education and Enablement. “It’s about making sure the people running production finance in Australia and New Zealand have somewhere to build the skills the industry needs, close to where they already work. If we wait for the education system to catch up on its own, we’ll still be having this conversation in five years. We are actively contributing to industry education via direct interactions with those doing the work, educational institutions like AFTRS and via our global EP Academy. The On Location series is a natural next step to expand our impact.”

On Location: Smart Production Finance Management will visit key production states through the remainder of 2026, with sessions open to production accountants and financial controllers regardless of their current software environment. Details, including session dates, locations and how to register, will follow in the coming weeks.

Australia has proven it can attract international production. The next test is whether the people managing the money behind it have the training, tools and career pathway to keep pace with industry growth. Entertainment Partners intends to be part of closing that gap.