Screen Australia reflects on 10 years of the Gender Matters KPI with ‘steady and consistent’ 2024/25 update
Screen Australia has today released the 2024/25 outcomes of the second year of its current Gender Matters KPI. In 2024/25, 56% of key creative roles – defined as producer, director and writer – across approved Screen Australia development and production funding were held by women, non-binary and/or gender diverse people.
Combined with the results of the first year of this KPI from 2023/24, the current average is 57%, on track to meet the three-year-average target of 50% from 2023/24 to 2025/26.
As the second year of the three-year KPI, Screen Australia Chief Operating Officer Grainne Brunsdon sees the results as a positive representation of where the industry is heading.
“Changes year-to-year are to be expected, but we’re delighted to see steady and consistent growth over time, with all approved development and production applications reaching over 50% in 2024/25.”
“Looking industry-wide, 46% of all key creative roles on projects that entered production were occupied by women in 2023/24*, matching the previous year’s result. While we know there is still work to be done in some areas, ten years on from Gender Matters’ launch, we can see positive change in an ever-evolving screen landscape. We recognise progress takes time, so our continued efforts in this space remain as important as ever.”
“Most significantly, we’re encouraged by the cultivation within games roles, as both creative and business roles reached over 50% representation for the first time since tracking of games data commenced. Reflecting on the growth of the games industry over the past year, it’s encouraging to see greater equity in Screen Australia-funded games roles.”
Screen Australia Chief Executive Officer Deirdre Brennan said, “These results reflect the vital work that continues on-set and behind-the-scenes across the industry to support female and gender diverse practitioners.”
“Screen Australia is committed to supporting an equitable and diverse sector, guided by our new strategic framework and purpose to build a vibrant, viable screen industry that reflects the depth and diversity of Australian stories.”
“We continue to collaborate with the sector to support genuine representation in the industry.”
EXAMINING SUCCESSFUL SCREEN AUSTRALIA APPLICATIONS (DEVELOPMENT AND PRODUCTION)
The data set that informs the KPI includes Screen Australia-funded project applications in both development and production. This is the second year the KPI has examined representation of women, non-binary and/or gender diverse people.
The data is further examined through eight report categories: feature drama, TV/VOD drama, documentary, and online drama in both development and production.
The overall figures for 2024/25 show that all eight categories were 50% or over.
In 2024/25, 56% of key creative roles on approved projects were occupied by women, non-binary and gender diverse people. This is further broken down by individual key roles: 62% of producer roles, 55% of writer roles and 49% of director roles.
Producers continue to drive parity, exceeding 50% in all report categories. Notably feature drama continues to be an area of focus with only producers reaching parity across development and production.
SCREEN AUSTRALIA DEVELOPMENT KEY TAKEAWAYS
In reviewing successful Screen Australia development applications for 2024/25, 54% of development roles were held by women, non-binary and/or gender diverse people, with all report categories reaching parity or above. TV/VOD development showed the highest representation at 65%. Online drama development, documentary development and feature drama development were only within a few percentage points at 54%, 51% and 50% respectively.
Producers continue to have the highest level of representation across all development categories, particularly TV/VOD drama development (70%). Feature drama development reports 60% and documentary development is at 58%, whereas producers in online drama reached 52%.
Writers are also above parity across three out of four categories with TV/VOD drama development at 64%, online drama development and documentary development both at 56% and feature drama development below parity at 41%.
Across all report categories, comparatively directors are least represented, but still reach above the 50% target for TV/VOD drama development (57%) and online drama development (52%). Feature drama development reached 45% and documentary development is at 35%. However, due to the nature and format of documentary content, directors may not be attached at development application stage.
SCREEN AUSTRALIA PRODUCTION KEY TAKEAWAYS
Across all approved Screen Australia production applications for 2024/25, 60% of key creative roles were held by women, non-binary and/or gender diverse people. Online drama production shows significant growth, showing the highest levels of representation of any report category with 80% of Screen Australia approved production applications creative roles held by women, non-binary and/or gender diverse people in 2024/25.
As with development applications, producers of Screen Australia production applications have notably higher representation in 2024/25, with women, non-binary and/or gender diverse people representing 64% of producers. Writers sit above parity at 59% and directors at 54%.
Online drama production shows significant representation of women, non-binary and/or gender diverse people with all three categories – producers, writers and directors – well above parity at 88%, 79% and 70% respectively.
TV/VOD drama production shows improvement on the previous year with all roles exceeding 60% representation: producers at 65%, directors at 62% and writers at 61%.
Documentary production exceeded parity in 2024/25 with 56% across all key creative roles. Producers led the roles with 60% representation, and directors and writers reached parity at 53% and 52% respectively.
Notably, feature drama production continues to show marked variation between key creative roles. Feature drama production writers and directors are below parity with women, non-binary and/or gender diverse people representing 45% and 36% respectively, while producers exceeded parity at 59%.
SCREEN AUSTRALIA GAMES DATA
Screen Australia also monitors gender diversity in broader agency funding applications, outside of the parameters of the Gender Matters KPI. The games sector reflects the largest area of potential development for Screen Australia gender reporting. In 2024/25, it also represents the highest growth in representation across Screen Australia-approved applications.
Due to the different roles within the games sector, the gender data is broken down into three key categories: creative, business and technical.
Overall, 45% of key games roles in approved applications in 2024/25 were held by women, non-binary and/or gender diverse people**.
Games creative and business roles were both above 50%, the first time in data reporting that these roles have exceeded 50% in any category for games.
Technical was lower at 24%; however, it was also the smallest reporting category between the three key categories.
This result is encouraging and reflects the continued work of the Screen Australia games team in advocacy and outreach within the games sector.
INDUSTRY-WIDE DATA
Screen Australia also measures gender representation across the broader Australian screen industry. Industry-wide gender data tracks the proportion of women only in key creative roles – producer, director and writer – in all screen productions entering production in Australia in a given financial year. This data includes industry-wide feedback, encompassing titles that are Screen Australia-funded alongside those that are not*.
This is a year-round process and consequently there is a one-year lag compared to Screen Australia application data, with 2023/24 results now available.
In 2023/24, industry-wide progress was slow, but continued to demonstrate growth. Women occupied 46% of all key creative roles on projects that entered production which is the same overall result as 2022/23, with women representing 52% of all industry-wide producer roles and 45% of writer roles.
The percentage of women directors remains below parity at 43% but, encouragingly, this was a slight increase from 2022/23, and an overall five-year high from previous industry-wide reporting.
As in the previous year, only online drama exceeded 50% representation across all three creative roles with producers at 58%, directors at 52% and writers at 55%.
TV drama showed improved representation with women occupying 57% of producer roles, 54% of writer roles and director roles at 49%.
Documentary and feature drama remain areas of focus, as all roles were below 50% in 2023/24, at 41% and 36% respectively.
In documentary, women accounted for 49% of producers, 38% of writers and 37% of directors.
Feature drama showed a slight increase on 2022/23 results, but continues to be below parity with 43% of producers, 33% of writers and 32% of director roles held by women.
Details of all data sets and notes on method are available here.
*Industry-wide data is based on information provided by industry agencies, broadcasters, and producers, as well as some publicly sourced information, and is recorded based on the financial year a title enters production in Australia. Titles surveyed include independent films to large scale international productions, local documentaries, and dramas for television and online.
**While this data covers development and production funding across online, feature film, television, documentary and games, games data is not counted towards this KPI due to differences in key roles. See how games categorisation differs from other data sets in notes on method here.
What to read next
Karl Liegis and Helen Panckhurst break down the strategies and opportunities for engaging sustainability in the screen sector.
07 Oct 2025
Aimée Lindorff