Spring has finally arrived and we’re happy to see a little sunshine at last! Although the winter hasn’t stopped how busy we are here at Skillsearch, here is a recap of (almost) everything we have been up to this winter!
Games Ground
In November, we sent Emily S over to Berlin where she ran a fantastic workshop on Levelling Up Your Job Search! This was the first of what we hope will be many talks from Emily, our resident diversity and inclusion expert 💖
Unite
Giles and Emily A headed to Amsterdam in late November for Unite, and our last conference of 2023 and had a blast meeting lots of incredible people in the beautiful city 😍
Christmas Party
December kicked off with our Christmas Party on the 1st! Following tradition, we enjoyed a day of festivities at our Brighton HQ with Secret Santa, speeches, and awards. Followed by an evening of delicious food, drinks and of course, a good old boogie 🕺
Games Brains
The following week we continued our festivities with our annual Games Brains of Brighton quiz where we were joined by the likes of Electric Square, Studio Gobo, Unity, FuturLab, Hangar 13, Hardball Games, Lively and Playmint, who competed in our (hardest ever) quiz to raise money for SpecialEffect! This year we raised £519.40😍
FuturLab were crowned our 2023 champions, taking home their pride, and a fabulous trophy 🏆
HR & Finance Systems Salary & Satisfaction Survey Report
This January, we published our first ever HR & Finance Survey Report (10 years after our first Games and Interactive one), the purpose of the survey is to shed light on all aspects of working in HR and Finance Systems. To allow salary transparency as well as open up meaningful conversations surrounding benefits, job hunting expectations and much more.
Read the full report here! 
Riyadh Visit
January also brought the first client visit of the year as Richard and Joe headed over to Riyadh to visit the incredible Steer Studios! This visit was particularly exciting as Steer is making strides towards Saudi Arabia being the next big gaming hub!
Sweden and Denmark Visit
The following week we sent Sam and Jake to visit some of their wonderful clients in Denmark and Sweden, including Rovio, Chamo Games, Liquid Swords, 10 Chambers, Embark and Remedy! So if you’re looking for a new role at a Scandinavian games studio, we have plenty to choose from 🙌
Skillsearch heads to Sofia
Just a couple of weeks later, eleven of the Skillsearch team touched down in Sofia, Bulgaria for a well-earned incentive trip... with sightseeing, spas, good food and some especially good wine, a great time was had by all 🍷☀
GameBlast
In late February it was time for SpecialEffect’s GameBlast, and through our game-filled lunch breaks and an edge-of-the-seat auction, we raised £248 for SpecialEffect 🎮
Games & Interactive Salary and Satisfaction Report
To mark the end of the winter months we released our 10th (!!!) Annual Games & Interactive Salary and Satisfaction Report!
With sections and data on salaries, industry redundancies, studio priorities and plenty more, it's our biggest and best yet 😍
Over the spring, we'll be picking out key bits of data, exploring them deeper and publishing a series of mini-reports. So be sure to keep an eye out here and on LinkedIn to stay in the loop with the latest info 🧐
Promotions and new roles
The winter saw plenty of role changes and promotions across the team too!
With Jay being promoted for the second time, up to Principal Resourcer, Dan and Emily T both being promoted to Consultant as well as Emily S moving into the role of Head of Client Success and Emily G being made Marketing Specialist, we can’t wait to see where else our team can grow over the coming year 💪
Head to our internal careers page if you’re interested in joining the team!
After such a busy winter, we won’t be resting, with summer being our busiest time of year, keep your eyes peeled to see what we get up to next!
