Ethnicity
Figure 1: Off-screen roles
Figure 2: On-screen roles
Figure 3: Genre off-screen roles
Figure 4: Drama off-screen roles
Figure 5: Factual Entertainment off-screen
Figure 6: Genre on-screen roles
Figure 7: Off-screen roles
Figure 8: Senior and non-senior roles
Figure 9: Senior and non-senior roles by ethnic group
Figure 10: Senior roles off-screen
Figure 11: Writers roles
Figure 12: Production roles
Figure 13: Scripted and non-scripted roles
Figure 14: On-screen roles
Figure 15: Presenter roles
Figure 16: Broadcasters off-screen
Figure 17: Broadcasters on-screen
Headlines
The proportion of contributions made by Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups decreased in 2025 both on and off-screen. Despite a few years of increased representation across cast and crew between 2021 and 2024, off-screen representation is now the same as it was in 2021.
Genres
While Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups are best represented in Current Affairs (21%) programmes off-screen, it is Drama (18%) where the most sustained progress has been made over the past few years (Figure 3).
On-screen, representation remains highest on Children’s and Drama programmes (both 35%) and lowest on Factual (17%) and Lifestyle (14%) programmes (Figure 6).
Off-screen
People from Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups remain under-represented in off-screen roles, making 13% of contributions in 2025 despite making up 17.9% of the national workforce (Labour Force Survey) (Figure 1).
After White people, those from Mixed and multiple ethnic groups continue to be represented at the highest level off-screen (6%), and at a higher rate than in the national workforce (1.8%) (Figure 7).
Representation by people from East Asian and South Asian groups (3.1% in total) has changed very little since Diamond monitoring started, and remains very low, below national workforce rates (7.2%) (Figure 7).
The proportion of contributions made by Black people has decreased from 4% in 2022 to 2.7% in 2025 and remains below the national workforce benchmark (5.2%) (Figure 7).
On-screen
Despite continued under-representation off-screen, Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups are still well represented on-screen, making 23% of contributions in 2025 (Figure 1). This is slightly higher than national population estimates (17.5%; Annual Population Survey). Representation is much higher in scripted (36%) rather than in non-scripted (20%) roles (Figure 13).
Genres
In 2025, Black, Asian and minority ethnic off-screen representation was highest in Current Affairs (21%) despite a slight dip in representation from 2022 to 2024.
Representation is also now strong in Drama programmes. Drama is the only genre where representation has increased for each of the past five years – from a very low 5.9% in 2020 to 18% in 2025.
Entertainment programmes have also seen a slight increase in Black, Asian and minority ethnic representation. However, in other genres we see little change or a recent downward trend.
Comedy and Factual Entertainment programmes had the lowest representation in 2025 (both around 11% of contributions).
The increase in representation on Drama programmes has been strongly driven by people from Black ethnic groups – from 1% of contributions in 2019 to almost 6% in 2025. Contributions by people from South Asian ethnic groups also increased substantially, from just over 1% in 2019 to almost 5% in 2025. However, this is low compared to the national workforce estimate for people from Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani ethnic groups (6.4%).
The proportion of contributions made by Mixed and multiple ethnic groups was relatively strong (over 4%) in 2019 but then halved in 2020 before gradually increasing again to just over 5% in 2025.
Data was redacted in some years for people from East Asian or Other ethnic groups, but we observe a notable increase in representation by East Asian people between 2022 and 2025. In contrast, we see an overall decrease in people from Other ethnic groups from 2% in 2019 to 1% in 2025.
The downward trend in Factual Entertainment is due to a decrease in representation by all Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups (except people from Other ethnic groups). This downward trend is particularly noticeable for people from Mixed and multiple ethnic groups (down from 8% in 2019 to 5% in 2025).
On-screen, representation continues to be highest on Children’s and Drama programmes where the proportion of contributions made by Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups has generally been increasing. People from Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups now make around one third of all on-screen programme contributions in these genres. Representation on Entertainment programmes has also been increasing.
On Comedy programmes, the proportion of contributions being made by people from Black, Asian and Minority ethnic groups has been fluctuating but with an overall decrease from 25% in 2019 to 18% in 2025.
Representation is lowest on Lifestyle programmes where 14% of on-screen contributions are made by people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups. This is low compared to the national population estimate of 17.5%.
Roles
Off-screen
Representation by people from Mixed and multiple ethnic groups remains strong off-screen. Between 2020 and 2025, the proportion of contributions increased from 4.7% to 5.8%, which is above the national workforce benchmark (1.8%). Representation of people from Other ethnic groups (1.3% of contributions) has also been increasing, but this remains low compared to workforce estimates (3.8%).
Despite an increase in representation by Black people from 3.2% in 2020 to 4% in 2022, the proportion of contributions have been decreasing since then. Representation fell to its lowest level in 2025 (2.7% of contributions), which is below workforce estimates (5.2%).
South Asian and East Asian groups remain substantially under-represented in the industry. In 2025 Asian groups as a whole made around 3% of contributions despite making up 7.2% of the national workforce.
Since 2020 there has been an increase in the proportion of contributions made by Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups extending to a peak of just over 13% in senior roles in 2024 and just under 15% in non-senior roles in 2022. However, 2025 brings a decrease in representation in both senior and non-senior roles.
Overall, representation by people from Mixed or multiple ethnic groups increased between 2019 and 2025 in both senior and non-senior roles.
There has also been a small increase in the proportion of contributions being made by Black people and people from Other ethnic groups in senior roles.
However, South Asian representation in senior roles decreased between 2020 and 2025 from 4.3% to 3.1%, which is low considering the annual population estimate in 2025 for those identifying as Indian, Bangladeshi or Pakistani is 6.4%.
For Black people and people from East Asian, South Asian and Other ethnic groups there has overall been little change in the proportion of contributions being made in non-senior roles between 2020 and 2025.
Across senior roles, people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups are more likely to be making contributions as Writers (21%) and Commissioning Editors (17%).
Black contributions as Writer had increased fourfold from 2.1% in 2022 to almost 9% in 2024. Despite a subsequent decrease to 6% in 2025, this is one of the few off-screen roles where Black representation is now at least equivalent with workforce estimates (5.2%).
In contrast, representation by Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups is very low in the role of Head of Production (fewer than 3% of contributions in 2025). Representation is also low, and below the workforce benchmark (17.9%), in the roles of Series Producer (10%), Executive Producer (11%), Director (11%), and Producer (12%).
In other production roles, Black, Asian and minority ethnic representation is highest in Commissioning (17%) and Camera (14%). Fewer than 10% of contributions are being made by people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups in Visual Effects (10%), Lighting (8%), Set Design (8%), Sound (7%), Craft and Technical (4%), and Set Crafts (3%).
On-screen
Overall, Black, Asian and minority ethnic representation in non-scripted roles has changed very little between 2019 and 2025. A very slight year-on-year increase in representation was evident between 2020 (17%) and 2024 (21%) before representation fell to 20% in 2025.
Representation in scripted roles has always been higher, with a significant increase taking place between 2021 (30%) and 2022 (36%). So far, this increase has mainly been sustained.
Between 2021 and 2023, the proportion of off-screen contributions by people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups working on programmes made by BBC, ITV and Sky, was increasing. That proportion has decreased in recent years, however. Channel 4 programmes saw a significant increase in representation from nearly 14% in 2023 to almost 16% in 2024, and that increase was sustained during 2025.
Nevertheless, off-screen representation continues to be highest on Sky programmes, where just over 17% of contributions are made by people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups, almost on a par with national workforce estimates (17.9%).
On Paramount programmes, Black, Asian and minority ethnic representation has been decreasing year on year since 2020. And across the four years of UKTV data that we have, we observe a decrease in representation from 14% in 2022 to just over 8% in 2025 (the lowest of all broadcasters).
Overall, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic actors are slightly more likely to be in a Supporting rather than Lead Actor role. But in 2024, Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups made slightly more contributions in Lead Actor roles than in Supporting Actor roles.
On non-scripted programmes, people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups are more likely to appear in Presenter roles than in Contributor roles. In fact, representation in Presenter roles has increased substantially, from 20% in 2021 to 37% in 2025.
Data for East Asian Presenters and Presenters from Other ethnic groups has been redacted due to only a very small number of people being in these roles. However, for other ethnic groups, we can observe large increases in the percentage of contributions made by people from Mixed and multiple, South Asian, and Black backgrounds. Notably, the proportion of contributions made by Black Presenters has doubled over the past five years from 9% to almost 19% of all Presenter contributions.
Broadcasters
On-screen, BBC and ITV programmes have the highest representation, with more than one in four of all contributions coming from people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups.
At Channel 4, over one fifth of contributions are made by people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups.
Representation at Paramount and Sky is slightly lower, following decreases since 2019 in the representation of people in Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups on their programmes. UKTV was not collecting Diamond data in 2019, but UKTV has the lowest on-screen representation by people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups – fewer than 14% of UKTV contributions in 2025.