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London film crew jobs: what the boards pay, and what the rate cards say

Mandy's London board showed 178 roles across 105 productions and a £220 median. The agreements covering the same crafts are split by budget band — here is which card is yours.

By Picturental · · 9 min read

Mandy's London crew board listed 178 roles across 105 productions on the morning of 2 October 2026. That works out at 1.7 roles per production, which tells you most of what you need to know about who is advertising: these are not units with a full camera department, they are one or two people on a short.

The first eleven productions on that board stated what they would pay. The ceilings were £4,000, £1,350, £450, £240, £200, £200, £75 and £60, and three gave no figure at all. The median of the eight that did is £220.

Bectu publishes rate cards for this work as well. Its index runs to more than forty cards and rate-guidance documents across its branches, covering film, television, theatre and live events, and the film and TV ones are split again by production budget. They describe a different market to the one on the board, and almost nobody explains to a crew member which of the two they are standing in.

This guide does that. It is not a list of rates — most of the cards are PDFs on Bectu's own site, several behind a member login, and reproducing them here would be both a copyright problem and out of date within a year. It is the thing that is actually missing: which card covers your role, when it was last updated, and what decides the number before anyone talks about your experience.

There is no single London crew rate, and the reason is budget bands

Ask what a grip earns in London and the honest answer is "on what size of film". The Bectu Grips Branch ratecard sets out three separate bands: productions budgeted at £30m and over, productions under £30m, and productions under £10m. Three different numbers for the same job, before anyone has looked at your credits.

That structure runs through the agreements. The Construction Crew ratecard for 2026-2027 applies only to major motion pictures and SVOD titles at £30m and above, so a construction crew on a £9m British feature is outside it entirely. The Costume film rate card divides every grade from designer down to PA by budget band too.

So the first question is not "what is the rate", it is "what is the budget". A crew member who cannot answer that about the job they are being offered cannot tell whether the offer is good, and that is the single most common reason people in this city are underpaid.

It also explains the £220 median above without anyone behaving badly. A short film with no budget band is not breaking an agreement, because no agreement reaches it.

The card you need, and when it was last touched

This is the part worth bookmarking. These are the Bectu cards that cover the crafts we list, as published on Bectu's ratecards index, checked on 2 October 2026, with the dates Bectu itself gives them.

Two things in that list are worth saying out loud.

The first is the spread of dates. The sound, AD, locations and unit driver cards are 2026. The grips card is April 2024. The post-production cards still read 2023-2025, which has lapsed. And Bectu's index still lists BBC freelance rates for series, serials and continuing drama as effective 1 April 2018 — eight years ago, for work that is still being made. If you are quoting the 2018 BBC figure at a 2026 meeting, you are negotiating against inflation with a document that predates the pandemic.

The second is what has no card at all. Working through the 26 crew roles we list, two came up empty: we could find no published Bectu rate for drone operators or casting directors. A third case is nearly as unhelpful — the Production branch is listed as having a minimum ratecard, which would cover producers, line producers and script supervisors, but the index carries no link to open it.

Drone work matters most here. It is now a routine line on a London schedule and there is no agreed floor for it, which means every drone day rate in this city is set by whoever asks first. If you fly, you are your own rate card.

The 40-mile rule nobody mentions until the call sheet arrives

One London-specific provision is worth knowing even if it does not cover your grade. The FAA-Bectu Pact ratecard for 2026 applies to background artistes, doubling and stand-in work within 40 miles of Charing Cross, and includes rates for standard and continuous day and night calls, shift calls, non-performance calls and meal penalties.

Forty miles from Charing Cross is a real boundary with money attached to it, and it is the reason a unit base in Watford and a unit base in Brighton are different conversations. Check what your own department's card says about distance and travel time before you agree to a location, not after.

What the job boards are for, and what they are not

We are a crew and gear marketplace, so take this with the appropriate pinch of salt, but it is worth being straight about it: Mandy and StarNow are not doing a bad job of a different job. They are doing exactly the job they are built for.

A board is an efficient way to fill a role on a short, a student film, a low-budget promo or a first credit, and 105 London productions advertising in a single week is genuine liquidity for that end of the market. If you need a first credit, that is where first credits are. The £60 and £75 listings are not an insult; they are a visible rung.

What a board does not do is fill a £30m feature's camera department. That work moves through heads of department, agents, and the people they worked with last time, and it never reaches an open listing, which is why the rate card for it exists and the board does not carry it. Paying a monthly subscription in the expectation of a banded feature job is the mistake, not the subscription itself.

Both things being true at once is the useful bit. Use a board for volume at the bottom of the market, use the rate cards to know what the top of it pays, and do not confuse the two.

How the crew side here works

Picturental sits in a third place: a named role, on a date, near a postcode.

You publish a crew profile with your roles, your day rate and the area you cover, and it appears at your own handle alongside any gear you rent out. When a production posts a crew request, the nearest eligible member within about 19 miles is asked on their own first. If they do not take it, it widens to the next nearest every 60 seconds. First to accept takes the job, and it locks to them.

Two details matter if you are the one being hired. On a crew job you are the one who travels, so the client's postcode is the meeting point and your home address is never shown to them. And the budget on the request is the total: the provider receives 85% of it and Picturental keeps 15%, with a £1 minimum, which is a different fee to the 12% the gear side charges a renter on top of an owner's day rate.

There is no subscription, and browsing is not gated. If you want the full mechanics, including how handover codes and disputes work, that is in how Picturental works. If you own kit as well as working on set, what you can earn renting out camera gear has the arithmetic for the other half of your income.

Frequently asked questions

What is the average day rate for film crew in London?

There is no single average, and any site that gives you one is guessing. Bectu's agreements set different rates for the same role depending on the production's budget band, usually split around £30m and £10m, so a grip on a major motion picture and a grip on a £9m independent are on two different cards. Find your department's card, then find your budget band, then negotiate.

Do I have to be a Bectu member to use the rate cards?

The cards are published as a negotiating baseline and several of the landing pages are public, though some documents require a member login to open. You do not need to be in the union to quote an industry-agreed rate at a producer, and the agreements only bind productions that have signed up to them. On everything else the card is evidence rather than a rule.

Why are Mandy and StarNow full of low-paid jobs?

Because open boards are where the low-budget end of the market advertises, and that end is large and genuinely active. On 2 October 2026 Mandy's London crew board showed 178 roles across 105 productions, averaging under two roles each. Banded feature and high-end TV crew is hired through heads of department and agents instead, so it does not appear on a board at any price.

What should I charge if there is no rate card for my role?

Start from the nearest card in your craft, then adjust for what you bring. Drone operators and casting directors have no published Bectu card at all, so the practical floor is whatever comparable work in your area is paying plus your kit, insurance and travel. Write the number down before the call rather than inventing it on the phone.

Is a paid job board subscription worth it for crew?

It depends entirely on which market you are in. If you are building credits and applying for shorts, promos and low-budget features, a board is where that work is listed and the volume justifies the cost. If you already have banded credits and are waiting for a feature to appear in a listing, you are paying to watch the wrong channel.

How far will a London crew job expect me to travel?

Further than you think, and the agreements price it. The FAA-Bectu Pact card draws its boundary at 40 miles from Charing Cross for background and stand-in work, and most departments' cards carry their own travel and distance provisions. Check them before you accept a location, because travel time agreed late is travel time unpaid.

The Bectu index is the thing to keep open in a tab. Four of the cards above carry 2026 dates and will be renegotiated for 2027, the post-production cards have already lapsed, and the day the BBC's 2018 freelance rates are finally replaced will be the most useful rate news this industry gets all year.