As 2025 comes to a close, I'm left with a lot of mixed emotions. It was a year of wonderful surprises and painful setbacks, of personal successes and un-achieved goals. I promised a peek behind the curtain at the nuts-and-bolts of what happened in my "career" this year; so here it is.

My partner often talks about "Pits and Peaks" - the highs and lows of whatever it is we're talking about - so it makes sense to start with those.

I think this year's career peak has to go to The Herds, the beautiful puppetry migration from the Congo Basin to the Arctic Circle that reinvigorated a passion for puppetry that had only occasionally seen the light of day. Though I only took part in a small section of their journey, the dedication of the performers, the craftsmanship of the designers and makers, and the message behind the work, have left a lasting impression on me.

Since then, I've gone on to make my first puppet, started writing and designing a puppet-based show, and have even secured some puppet work for 2026. On a personal note, I've finally cut the last bits of meat out of my diet too.

Unfortunately, the Pit of the year has been my voice work, which is annoying considering how much progress I've made. Once I got my homemade vocal booth built, I was finally able to make some real progress. I recorded three voice-reels that I'm incredibly proud of, put my coding skills to the test by building a website to host them, and made friends with a wonderful group of talented artists who went above and beyond to guide me in the right direction, but at the end of the day I wasn't able to find representation.

It's not the end of the world - it's something I'll continue to chase in 2026 - but not achieving a goal like that bugs me, it's just the kind of person I am.

Okay, now that that's out of the way, I promised you some stats. I've been through my 2025 diary and collected all my auditions, opportunities, and jobs, and broken them down by type across the year. Here we go...

2025 Year in Review

Total Auditions

41 (avg 3.4 p/m)

I have to admit I was surprised to see February come out on top for audition number this year; I've never done this type of analysis before, so I'm not really sure what I expected, but just going off vibes, this was a surprise.

The slumps around July and August I attribute mainly to Fringe season, with Edinburgh being the obvious one. It feels like a lot of the industry is out seeing the new shows rather than casting their own around then. The harsh drop in December wasn't exactly surprising, but was steeper than I anticipated. My agents went off for their holidays around the 19th, so I do expect some radio silence from then until the new year.

For 2026, I wonder if it would be worth trying to time my "touching base with casting director" emails to coincide with the end of these slumps, so an email burst in January and late August? Seems like a good goal to aim for.

Breakdown by Genre

Now this was a surprise. I knew I auditioned for a lot of adverts this year, but I had no idea I had so few TV auditions. This is something I really want to address in 2026, and I think I have a plan for going about it. I've been collecting my subs lists for the past 6-7 months and have spotted some names and shows that I haven't been seen for; namely the folk behind the popular daytime series, crime dramas, the soaps, and the prestige dramas. Shows that have a core group of recurring characters, but a rotating cast of featured roles, cycle through new groups of actors with every episode, and are a great way to get those first few TV credits when you're building your CV. I got a fair few of these when I was up in Scotland, but they've been harder to come by since moving down south.

I got some lovely theatre auditions this year, and even booked a couple for next year, so whilst the quantity has been low, the quality has been very, very high. Whilst I would love to get this number higher, I'm really happy with how this turned out.

Film auditions always feel a little bit like a shot in the dark, but again I'm very happy with how they went. One in particular was for a very big upcoming film, and from what I understand, the director saw my tape and loved it. I've yet to hear back from that audition as the project has seen some serious delays, so technically I'm still up for it, but I think it's safe to say the moment has passed.

Genre by Month

This is a breakdown of genre by month. I don't think there's too much to glean from this at the moment, but I'll be interested to see how it compares to the graphs of years to come.

Total booked jobs from my agent this year....

0

---

Self-Sourced Work

This section includes auditions I've found myself, as well as my own self-produced theatre work and work I've collaborated on with other artists.

Self-Sourced Opportunities

13

Booked Jobs

5

Possibly the biggest surprise of the year was that all of my acting work came from self-sourced opportunities. Not all of it was paid, though some of it was (and some of it required a bit of an investment for travel on my part), but I learned a lot from every project. Whilst doing research for this I was struck by the sheer variety of work I managed to find myself. There was some really emotionally affecting theatre work, some brilliant comedy shorts, puppetry work, and even the odd teaching gig (not included here). This is one of the things I love about this line of work; you never know what you're going to be doing next.

---

Earnings from Acting 2025

£662.00

I'm not going to post my expenses for the year - the tax man gets that privilege - but needless to say I spent more on my career this year than I made. This money just about covers my Spotlight subscription, Equity dues, and head-shots.

---

In conclusion...

That was 2025. It was, indeed, the year that just happened.

Looking at the numbers, we can see that whilst I had a 0% success rate with agent-sourced work, I had a ridiculous 38% success rate with self-sourced work. More than anything this should serve as an indication of just how competitive the acting industry can be. Thousands of people could be going up for that one role in that one TV show, and many many more will have been submitted and not reached the audition stage at all. Every audition you do get is a sign that someone thinks you might be the one to solve their problem, that they liked your tape and wanted to see more. Getting seen at all is a statistical miracle and is nothing to scoff at.

What I really need now is a good few days off at home where I can focus on planning my next moves, reach out to some of the names I've collected, and re-double my efforts in voice work and puppetry: these are areas of high potential and I can't afford to sleep on them. I've spoken a lot about pressure in this blog, self-imposed or otherwise, and whilst I'd hate to add more of that onto my plate, I am ambitious. I have a lot I want to do this year, and I think I might now be in a place where I can manage it.