Best VFX Studios in London (2026)

Introduction

London is one of the two or three largest visual effects centres in the world, and the 13 studios below cover its range: the film houses behind Hollywood tentpoles, the boutiques that handle invisible effects for British drama, and the advertising specialists clustered in Soho and East London.

The past two years were hard on the city's facilities. Technicolor's collapse in February 2025 shut MPC and The Mill in London, with around 440 UK staff at The Mill laid off. Jellyfish Pictures went into administration a month later, and Glassworks closed. Televisual's Facilities 50 report in December 2025 described a market with too much capacity chasing fewer projects. There has been some recovery since: TransPerfect reopened The Mill in London in October 2025, former Jellyfish leaders started Jellyfish FX, and the UK's enhanced tax relief for VFX spend took effect in April 2025.

Every studio here has an active London office in 2026. We looked at recent credits, 2025 and 2026 awards, and stability, and left out studios that have closed. The list runs in no fixed order of merit, because the right partner depends on whether you are making a feature, a series or a 30-second spot.

The best VFX studios in London

1. Framestore

Majority-owned by Cultural Investment Holdings · Holborn · framestore.com

Framestore marked its 40th anniversary in September 2026 and is one of London's two largest VFX companies, with its main studio on Chancery Lane and further studios in Montréal, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Mumbai and Melbourne. Shanghai-based Cultural Investment Holdings bought a 75% stake in 2016, and Mel Sullivan has been CEO since 2022. The studio's 2026 Emmy nominations included Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age and Foundation season 3.

Recent film credits include Wicked: For Good, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Project Hail Mary and The Sheep Detectives. Its advertising arm is just as active, with work for McVitie's, GEICO and Columbia Sportswear in 2026.

2. DNEG

Part of Prime Focus · Fitzrovia · dneg.com

DNEG has won eight Academy Awards for visual effects since 2011, and its London headquarters on Great Portland Street remains the centre of a network of 19 studios. It is part of the Prime Focus group, alongside sister companies ReDefine and Brahma AI.

The studio has a long working relationship with Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve. Recent and upcoming projects include Nolan's The Odyssey, Dune: Part Three, Coyote vs. Acme and Nitesh Tiwari's Ramayana.

3. Industrial Light & Magic London

Owned by Lucasfilm (Disney) · London · ilm.com

ILM's London studio is one of five worldwide, alongside San Francisco, Vancouver, Mumbai and Sydney. London artists work on the company's main film and series slate alongside the other sites.

Artists from London contributed to The End of Oak Street for Warner Bros. in 2026, and ILM's current credits include The Mandalorian and Grogu, Supergirl and Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

4. Cinesite

Management and private investors · Fitzrovia · cinesite.com

Cinesite opened its London studio in 1994 and has its head office on Little Portland Street. The group has grown through acquisitions and now includes Image Engine, Trixter, FX3X and Squeeze. In September 2026 it won a Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Single Episode for Spider-Noir.

Film credits include The Fall Guy, Road House and Michael, and its animation side is behind Andy Serkis's Animal Farm and Brad Bird's Ray Gunn. It suits productions that want VFX and animation from a single group.

5. The Mill

Owned by TransPerfect · Aldgate · themill.com

The Mill closed in London when Technicolor collapsed in early 2025. TransPerfect bought the business and reopened the London studio in October 2025, with managing director Liam Collinwood and a group of returning staff, about 15 people at launch. In June 2026 TransPerfect folded MPC into The Mill, adding a film and series division led by Béatrice Bauwens.

The London studio now works from Aldgate High Street, with an emphasis on advertising campaigns built for localisation and AI-assisted workflows. It is much smaller than the pre-2025 studio, so ask about team size and which site will handle your shots.

6. Untold Studios

Independent · London · untoldstudios.tv

Untold Studios was named Craft Company of the Year at the 2026 British Arrows for the second year running, with involvement in 25 winning films. BMW "Heart of Joy" took Gold for CGI craft. CEO Darren O'Kelly co-founded the studio, which describes itself as a creative studio spanning music, TV and advertising.

It has opened a studio in Toronto, and in August 2026 hired Adrianna Cohen as president of film and episodic VFX, a sign that long-form work is growing alongside its advertising. Clients include Tropicana, Vodafone, Meta and Virgin Media.

7. Electric Theatre Collective

Independent · Shoreditch · electrictheatre.com

Electric Theatre Collective was founded in 2011 and combines VFX, colour grading and motion design under one roof. Its London studio is on Brick Lane, and it also has an office in New York.

The client list is mostly advertising: Apple, Netflix, OpenAI, Coca-Cola, Lexus, Audible and B&Q, often through agencies such as BBH London and Droga5 London. Having grade and VFX in the same building helps on tight commercial schedules.

8. Time Based Arts

Independent, B Corp certified · Shoreditch · time-based-arts.com

Time Based Arts is a VFX and colour grading studio in Shoreditch working across commercials, music videos, film and episodic. It holds B Corp certification and runs an art practice alongside its commercial work.

Advertising clients include Nike, Google Pixel, Budweiser, Uber, Coinbase and British Airways. On the long-form side it has worked on Poor Things, Love Lies Bleeding and Peaky Blinders.

9. Union VFX

Independent · Soho · unionvfx.com

Union VFX was founded in 2008 to serve feature film and high-end television, and has a sister company in Montréal. It is BAFTA-winning and known for invisible effects, with growing CG and FX work.

Directors it has worked with include Danny Boyle, Sam Mendes, Martin McDonagh and Yorgos Lanthimos. Recent credits include 28 Years Later, Black Mirror: USS Callister: Into Infinity, Prime Target, Poor Things and All of Us Strangers.

10. One of Us

Majority-owned by Basilic Fly Studio · Soho · oneofusvfx.com

One of Us was founded in London in 2004 by Rachael Penfold, Dominic Parker and Tom Debenham, and has since opened in Paris, Bangalore and Los Angeles. India's Basilic Fly Studio took a 70% stake in July 2024. Its work on The Crown and The Witcher won BAFTA TV craft awards.

Recent and current credits include Hamnet, The Bride!, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, Troll 2 and The Witcher season 4. Its strength is design-led effects for filmmakers who care about tone as much as scale.

11. BlueBolt

Independent · London · blue-bolt.com

BlueBolt is a mid-sized London studio led by managing director Tracy McCreary, with a reputation for period drama and environment work. Its effects for Robert Eggers's Nosferatu earned a VES Award nomination in 2025.

For Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale it delivered 138 shots, including a tracking sequence through 1930s Piccadilly Circus. Earlier work includes digital restoration of Hampton Court tapestries for Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light. The studio strengthened its pipeline team in late 2025, adding a new CTO and head of pipeline.

12. Freefolk

Independent · Spitalfields · freefolk.com

Freefolk was founded in 2003 and moved to Elder Street in Spitalfields in 2023. It covers colour grading, 2D and 3D VFX, shoot supervision and design, with a Film & Episodic department added in 2016 alongside its commercials work. It shared an Emmy for The Alienist and holds an Oscar nomination.

Clients include Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Paramount and Universal. Freefolk also runs Futurefolk, an annual competition for new VFX talent, now in its ninth year.

13. Jellyfish FX

Backed by Troubadour Studios · Central London · jellyfishfx.com

Jellyfish Pictures entered administration in March 2025 with 69 redundancies. Its former VFX leadership, led by managing director Phil Greenlow, launched Jellyfish FX in June 2025 with backing from Troubadour Studios, which bought the Jellyfish trademark, and support from original founder Phil Dobree.

The team's credits include Lee, Black Mirror season 7, Gangs of London season 3 and The Rig season 2. At launch it was working on two Netflix films. As a young boutique, it suits episodic and mid-budget film work more than very large shot counts.

What to look for in a London VFX studio

Match the studio to the format. London's large houses can staff hundreds of artists on a single feature and split shots across sites in India and Canada. Boutiques such as Union and BlueBolt give a smaller team and more senior attention, which suits invisible effects for drama. Advertising specialists work to much shorter schedules and often keep grade and VFX together.

Check stability. Several well-known London names closed in 2025, and some studios have changed owners since. Ask who owns the studio, which sites will work on your shots, and whether the supervisor in the bid meeting will stay on the job.

Ask how the UK tax relief applies. Since April 2025, qualifying VFX costs on UK productions attract an enhanced rate, and studios with London-based artists can help a production make the most of it. Offshore work is often cheaper per shot but may not qualify.

Finally, ask how review works day to day. A feature can run to thousands of versions across plates, renders and comps. Studios with a clear system for sharing versions, collecting notes and recording approvals save weeks on a show and avoid costly mix-ups at delivery.

How Fabric helps VFX teams

Fabric gives a studio or production one workspace for files, notes and references, with AI search across all of it. Plates, renders and comps sit in Fabric's cloud drive, which streams files on demand so they take no local disk space, and heavy video files open without a full download. There is more on handling heavy outputs in your rendering files need a home.

Finding a past shot or reference is quicker with search, which works by meaning across documents, images and transcribed audio and video, and includes colour search. Similar search takes a frame or image and finds others with a similar composition, colour or subject, useful when building lookdev references. Recorded spotting sessions and supervisor calls can be transcribed with clickable timestamps.

For client review, any folder of versions can be published as a web page with password protection. Producers and clients can leave threaded comments through a shared link without creating an account. Timestamped comments and drawing on video are coming soon to annotations; for now, notes sit at file level. The review and approval guide shows how teams set this up.

A Kanban board can turn a folder of shots into a pipeline view, where each card is the file itself.

Password protection is included on Pro and Team plans. See plans for teams.

Frequently asked questions

What is the biggest VFX studio in London?

Framestore and DNEG are the largest London-headquartered VFX companies, each running hundreds of artists across several international sites. ILM, owned by Disney's Lucasfilm, also runs a large London studio.

Did The Mill and MPC close in London?

Both closed in London when Technicolor collapsed in early 2025. TransPerfect reopened The Mill in London in October 2025 and merged MPC into The Mill in June 2026. MPC no longer operates under its own name.

What happened to Jellyfish Pictures?

Jellyfish Pictures entered administration in March 2025. Former members of its VFX leadership launched Jellyfish FX in June 2025, backed by Troubadour Studios.

Which London VFX studios focus on advertising?

Untold Studios, Electric Theatre Collective, Time Based Arts, Freefolk and The Mill do most of their work in commercials, and Framestore has a large advertising division. Many of these studios also offer colour grading, so you may want to compare them with our list of colour grading studios in London.

How much does VFX cost in London?

Costs depend on shot count, complexity and schedule, so studios quote per project after a breakdown of the script or board. Ask for a bid by shot or sequence, and check how the UK's enhanced VFX tax relief affects the final figure for your production.

Related lists

VFX studios in other cities: New York · Los Angeles · Toronto · Sydney · Berlin

More in London: Creative agencies · Post-production · Animation studios · Colour grading · Editing · Sound design

Run your studio on Fabric: Fabric for creative teams · Best video asset management tools · Best creative proofing tools