# guides / career map
How to get into VFX in the UK.
The Soho pipeline explained honestly. Runner to junior, junior to mid, mid to senior. Which studios have the best conversion rate, what a Nuke reel looks like, and how long it actually takes.
By Joel Reed, Editor. Last verified 2026-07-06.
TL;DR
- The pipeline: runner (£22k-£25k) then junior comp / roto (£25k-£30k) then mid (£38k-£50k) then senior (£55k-£85k+).
- The tool: Nuke. Nuke is what Soho compositors use, and Nuke reels are what studios hire on. Not Fusion, not After Effects.
- The training: Foundry Learn is free. ScreenSkills Trainee Finder is the industry pipeline. Escape Studios PgDip is the paid shortcut.
- The reel: three Nuke shots, one roto-heavy, one keying-heavy, one integration. Two minutes max.
- The timeline: 12 to 24 months from zero to a paid junior comp seat, if you commit 15+ hours a week and can be in London.
The Soho pipeline, honestly.
London VFX concentrates in Soho and Fitzrovia (Framestore Chancery Lane, DNEG Great Portland Street, MPC Great Marlborough Street, The Mill Great Marlborough Street, Union Argyll Street, Milk Ivor Place). Every UK VFX career runs through one of these buildings or a satellite (DNEG Vancouver, Framestore Mumbai, and so on). Understand the four rungs before you plan.
Rung 1: runner
The runner is the studio-floor entry job. £22,000 to £25,000, on-site in Soho, hours often long. You collect deliveries, book cabs, restock the kitchen, occasionally move footage between suites. The real point of the runner year is proximity: you meet the compositors, watch the pipeline, and get first look at internal junior openings. Roughly 40% of UK Soho compositors under 30 started as runners.
Rung 2: junior compositor / roto artist
The first artist rung. £25,000 to £30,000 in London, more likely £27k-£32k for Nuke-competent hires. Roto is often the entry seat (tracing mattes for other artists) and pays slightly less; junior comp is the goal. Expect 12 to 24 months on this rung before mid.
Rung 3: mid compositor / lighter / matte-paint
£38,000 to £50,000 depending on studio and credits. IMDB Pro credits become load-bearing here: the more mid-tier feature and streaming work you can show, the faster you move up.
Rung 4: senior + FX TD
£55,000 to £85,000+, occasionally over £100k for senior FX TDs and CG supervisors. This rung is credit-driven and negotiated per project.
Learn Nuke first, learn it properly.
Nuke is what Soho uses. Fusion is fine, After Effects is fine for motion graphics, but neither gets you a Soho comp seat. Start with Foundry’s own learning path.
- Foundry Learn (free). learn.foundry.com/nuke hosts the official beginner track. Free, well-scoped, aligned to studio use.
- Nuke Non-commercial (free). Foundry gives Nuke away for personal use with a small render-resolution cap. Enough to build a full comp reel.
- Hugo’s Desk on YouTube (free). A working comp artist walking through real shots. The single best free channel in 2026.
- Rebelway Nuke Compositing (paid). £700-£900 per course, senior comp TDs teaching. Worth it if you have run out of free material.
Once Foundry Learn is done, replicate three Soho-style shots yourself: a green-screen key with hair, a roto-and-track integration, and a CG element comped into live footage. Those three shots are your reel candidates.
ScreenSkills Trainee Finder in detail.
The ScreenSkills Trainee Finder is the industry-backed placement scheme funded by the BFI, HETV levy, and studio contributions. Applications typically open in spring for placements starting September. Placements are paid, run 6 to 12 months, and sit inside participating studios: DNEG, Framestore, MPC, Cinesite, Milk, Union, Nvizible, Blue Zoo, Jellyfish, and about a dozen others.
Two things to know:
- Quotas are small. Total VFX placements across all studios were about 60 to 90 for the 2025-26 intake.
- The application weights portfolio heavily. A Nuke reel with three finished shots plus a short breakdown video is more or less the baseline. Under-25s from underrepresented backgrounds get additional bursary routes; check the eligibility filters on the site.
Miss the intake and it is a year until the next window. Applying early inside the window helps.
Which Soho studios have the best junior conversion rate?
Editorial estimate, based on LinkedIn and IMDB Pro cross-checks in July 2026. Take these as directional, not precise.
| Studio | Runner-to-junior conversion (est) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Framestore | ~35% | Structured runner pool; internal Nuke training well documented. |
| DNEG | ~30% | Large intake; conversion varies by division. |
| MPC | ~25% | Mid-slow conversion but strong once inside. |
| Cinesite | ~30% | Feature animation biases toward Maya artists. |
| Union / Nvizible / Milk | ~40% | Smaller shops; runners often become artists faster. |
Conversion rate is one signal; day-to-day culture is another. The smaller shops (Union, Nvizible, Milk, Territory) tend to give juniors more shot ownership sooner. The bigger shops (Framestore, DNEG, MPC) put you on named tentpole films with famous supervisors, which weighs more on your later CV.
The Nuke reel that gets you interviewed.
Studios do not watch reels for long. Two minutes total, three shots, hard cut in and out. The reel needs a matching PDF breakdown showing your node tree, plate, and passes for each shot.
- Shot 1: roto and tracking. A live-action plate with a person or object moving through frame. You roto cleanly, track the plate, and integrate one CG element or matte paint.
- Shot 2: keying and despill. A green-screen plate with hair or motion blur. You key it clean, do the despill, and comp over a new background.
- Shot 3: CG integration. A CG asset comped into live plate, with grade, grain, defocus, and light-wrap matching.
Common rejection reasons studios cite: mattes with hard edges, obvious spill on keys, mismatched grain between plate and CG, over-decorated titles, background music in the reel. Cut all five.
Realistic timeline: zero to junior.
| Phase | Duration | Milestone |
|---|---|---|
| Learn | 0-6 months | Foundry Learn beginner + Hugo’s Desk YouTube completed. |
| Practice | 6-12 months | Three Nuke shots finished, reel edited, breakdown PDF written. |
| Apply (runner) | 9-14 months | Apply to every Soho studio runner listing. Expect 2-4 offers across 40+ applications. |
| Runner | 14-24 months | On-floor, learning studio pipeline, angling for junior comp opening. |
| Junior comp | 20-30 months | First paid Nuke seat, £27k-£32k, London. |
The other viable route is Escape Studios PgDip VFX (12 months, London, about £12k) which compresses learn+practice+apply into one year with a direct studio pipeline. Whether the £12k plus London rent is worth it depends on your budget and how fast you learn without structure.
Salary at each rung, verified 2026-07.
Numbers cross-checked against Glassdoor UK, LinkedIn Salary Insights, and the ScreenSkills 2025 pay survey.
| Rung | London (Soho) | Regional | Freelance day rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Runner | £22k-£25k | n/a (Soho-only) | n/a |
| Junior comp / roto | £27k-£32k | £24k-£28k | £180-£260 |
| Mid comp | £38k-£50k | £32k-£42k | £300-£450 |
| Senior comp | £55k-£75k | £45k-£60k | £450-£650 |
| Comp lead / supervisor | £70k-£95k+ | £55k-£75k | £600-£900 |
| FX TD (Houdini) | £45k-£85k+ | £38k-£65k | £400-£800 |
Two caveats: London Soho pay is real but so is Zone 2 rent (about £1,400-£1,800/mo for a room). And senior + supervisor pay is credit-driven; the same senior comp on a Marvel tentpole earns meaningfully more than one on a mid-budget indie feature.
Common rejection reasons.
The five reasons studios cite when passing on a junior application, ranked by frequency in our recruiter conversations across 2025-26:
- Wrong tool. A Blender reel sent to a Nuke house. If you want a Nuke seat, the reel must be in Nuke.
- Unfinished shots. Reels with visible mattes, hard edges, or obvious spill. Studios prefer two finished shots over five half-finished ones.
- Over-decoration. Music, animated titles, wild colour grades. All read as compensating for weak work.
- No breakdown. A reel with no breakdown PDF is a reel where the studio has to guess whether you can actually do the work. Guessing goes against you.
- Missing basics. Rotoscoping is the reel section studios watch first. A hair edge that ratchets or a matte that pulses fails a mid-supervisor test in under 10 seconds.
Sources cited on this page.
- ScreenSkills Trainee Finder: screenskills.com/careers-advice/trainee-finder.
- Foundry Learn Nuke: learn.foundry.com/nuke.
- Foundry Nuke Non-commercial: foundry.com/products/nuke-family/non-commercial.
- Framestore Careers: framestore.com/careers.
- DNEG Careers: dneg.com/careers.
- MPC Careers: mpc-vfx.com/careers.
- ScreenSkills 2025 pay survey (industry data): screenskills.com.
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