What does BBC Writers do?
Providing writing advice, resources, and development opportunities for new and experienced writing talent across the UK
About BBC Writers
BBC Writers (previously BBC Writersroom) is a cross-platform department which seeks out and develops new writing talent, with a strong emphasis on diversity and regionality, while also championing more experienced writers.
We work with a wide range of Scripted departments across the BBC including BBC Comedy, Audio Drama and Childrens, with BBC Studios, and with Independent production companies across the UK.
We are part of BBC Drama Commissioning, within BBC Public Service.
Find out more about our work below including answers to Frequently Asked Questions about our opportunities and how to apply.
Read our Annual Reports
Annual Report for 2024/25
Our Annual Report showcases the writers we have worked with and our activities and data for 2024/25.
Annual Report for 2022/23
Read about the many talented emerging writers we worked with during 2022/23 via our writer development groups and other opportunities.
Annual Report for 2021/22
Discover our development programmes, meet the 194 writers who took part, find out the partners we worked with, see case studies, credits, stats & more!
Where is BBC Writers based?
BBC Writers works with scriptwriters across the UK and Republic of Ireland from our bases in London, Salford, Glasgow, Cardiff and Belfast.
Meet the Team and find out which staff are based in your area
How can BBC Writers help me develop my writing?
BBC Writers is the public face of the BBC to the UK writing community, online and in the real world. Our focus is developing scriptwriters working in the English language.
We run targeted Writers' Groups, support talent initiatives (sometimes in partnership with other organisations), offer career and script advice, and champion the writers we work with. We look for unique voices, identifying and developing talent through our opportunities.
- Scripted - a one-year development programme for writers identified through our Open Call submissions and other talent searches.
- Voices - a six-month development programme for writers identified through our Open Call and other talent searches and divided into six national/regional hubs.
- Pilot - developing more experienced writers towards their first original script commission with a placement at an independent production company.
- Writers' Access Group - an 18-month development programme for talented d/Deaf, disabled and/or neurodivergent writers.
- Write Across - an eight week writer development programme focussing on a particular location, run in partnership with local organisations.
In addition we support writers towards gaining professional broadcast credits, most recently through Long Story Short, a new talent initiative from BBC Writers which pairs fresh voices with local production companies to develop ambitious short films for BBC iPlayer and BBC Three.
Writing Resources
On our website and through our social media we offer opportunities, help and advice to support your development, including our Resources page, our Blog, Script Library, Be Inspired interviews and Writing Opportunities page.
Read more about our Successes
How can I send my work to BBC Writers?
Our annual Open Call is our system for receiving unsolicited original scripts. Our Open Call is not a competition but a means by which the BBC seeks out the best writing talent. We look for writers with the strongest potential to be developed and produced for BBC broadcast. Writers who are successful in our Open Call may be offered a place in our Scripted or Voices development groups.
Find out full details of the Open Call including dates, what we look for and what we do and do not accept.
We also run other occasional callouts including Pilot, the Writers' Access Group and Write Across. Each of these opportunities has more restrictive entry criteria. Full details and terms and conditions are published on our Opportunities page when each opportunity is open for submissions.
We do not accept submissions outside these specific opportunities. We only accept submissions via our online E-submissions system.
We do not accept submissions via email or post at any time.
The E-Submissions System
Our online submissions system for scripts (E-Submissions) is here to make the process of submitting your script to BBC Writers simpler and more secure for you as a writer and more efficient for us to manage. Finding new writing talent and new voices for the BBC is our priority, and we want the process around finding that talent and those great scripts, to be as straightforward and streamlined as possible.
The previous system of submitting printed copies of scripts via post required a huge amount of administration – requiring each script to be manually logged by a member of staff. This meant that there were often delays in you receiving acknowledgement that your script had reached us and delays in finding out about the progress of your script.
With the E-submissions system, you will receive an immediate acknowledgement with a submission number once you submit a script to us and you will also be able to log-in online to find out the outcome. You can also login to see the last seven years history of submissions you have made to BBC Writers (and BBC Comedy Collective, which uses the same system).
The online (E-Submissions) system is also kinder to the environment as our reading process is done entirely electronically, saving a huge amount of paper (in an average year we can receive over 6000 scripts in the Open Call). It will also help you save money on postage!
If you wish to enter one of our opportunities you must set up a profile on the E-submissions system. You can do this at any time by visiting the E-submissions login page and clicking on Sign Up. You can also create a profile as part of the process of entering your first opportunity.
Your profile on the BBC Writers E-Submissions system is completely separate from BBC ID (that is used for BBC iPlayer etc).
Once you have created a profile you can login at any time to check the status of any submissions you have previously made or to update your details.
If you need to update your email address or any of your personal details, login to E-submissions using the email address you previously registered with. Once logged in, click on your email address and select ‘Profile’ in the top right hand corner, and you can amend any of the details on your profile page. Once you’ve amended these, click 'Update' at the bottom of the page and your details will be updated.
To submit your script for a particular BBC Writers talent search or opportunity please browse the current listing of Opportunities on the BBC Writers website. BBC Writers opportunities which are currently accepting submissions will provide a specific submission link through to E-submissions to allow you to submit your work online.
If you have previously submitted an entry to an opportunity using the E-submissions system and have therefore already created a profile, please use these details to log-in when prompted.
If this is the first time you have entered an opportunity via E-submissions then you will be able to create a profile as part of the process of entering your submission.
To enter an opportunity you must use the link which is specific to that opportunity and will be published on the webpage for the opportunity.
Before submitting your script to any talent search, please ensure that you read the terms and conditions to ensure that you are eligible to enter. You will be asked to confirm your eligibility before entering.
You can withdraw your submission at any time up until the talent search closes for entries. To do so, log in to E-Submissions, select the relevant submission and choose Withdraw my Submission. You will then be sent an email from BBC Writers confirming that your application has been withdrawn.
After the submission window closes, you will no longer be able to withdraw your script yourself so instead use the form below to Contact Us to ask that we manually exclude your script from the reading process.
If you wish to amend or resubmit your entry then we recommend that you firstly copy any answers that you have typed in response to the additional questions and save these outside the E-submissions system.
You will then need to withdraw your original submission following the steps above and re-enter again.
To track the progress of your submissions, sign in using your registered email address and password via the E-submissions log-in page. Once logged in, you will be able to see the talent searches which you have entered and the status of your submissions.
You can click on each of your submissions for further details.
If you have previously created an E-submissions profile but have forgotten your details then go to the E-Submissions log-in page and click on the ‘Forgot Your Password’ link. You will be prompted to enter the e-mail address which you previously registered with, and the system will send a link to create a new password to that e-mail address.
If you're having problems logging in, in the first instance, please try refreshing your browser and try logging in again. Please check that you are using the correct email address and password which you registered with.
If you are continuing to have problems Contact Us using the form below.
PDFs are the only document format which our E-submissions system will accept. We accept PDFs as they are secure documents which cannot be edited once we have received them and they are compatible with different devices.
If you are using Microsoft word processing and do not know how to save your file as a PDF, please refer to Office Support. All software will come with its own user guidelines. We cannot offer technical support for third party software.
We require you to input your personal details, so that we can keep in touch with you about your progress within the talent searches you have submitted for. The BBC will only ever use personal details for the purposes of administering a talent search. Please see BBC Writers' Privacy Policy.
When you enter a talent search you will also be asked a series of equal opportunities questions before submitting your work – please note that these are optional, and it is possible to proceed with submitting your script without providing this information. If you choose to provide this information it is not linked to your profile within the E-submissions system.
BBC Comedy
BBC Comedy writer, writer/performer, director, producer and editor development is looked after by BBC Comedy Commissioning, which brings together all comedy outreach that is happening across the BBC under one strategy.
The separate Caroline Aherne Bursary, Felix Dexter Bursary and Galton & Simpson Bursary for writers have been brought together with two new bursaries for directors and producers into the BBC Comedy Collective, a supercharged bursary scheme offering 10 places each year to up-and-coming writers, producers and directors who’d like to develop their careers in scripted comedy.
Find out more about the BBC Comedy Collective leaders and alumni
Interested in breaking into Comedy?
Visit the BBC Comedy Commissioning website to find out about more opportunities
- Visit the BBC Studios TalentWorks website to find out more about Writers’ Studio: Soap, Writers’ Studio: Cosy Crime and The Writer Spotlight.
