Best Animation Studios in Manchester (2026)

Introduction

Greater Manchester has one of the UK’s oldest animation scenes, and the eight studios below cover most of what a brand, broadcaster or producer might need: stop-motion, puppet fabrication, 2D character work, motion design and real-time 3D. They were chosen for recent work, 2025 and 2026 recognition, and evidence of an active studio in the city region.

The city’s animation history runs through Cosgrove Hall, which made Danger Mouse and The Wind in the Willows before closing in 2009, and whose former staff went on to found Mackinnon & Saunders and Kilogramme. Factory, the studio behind the Clangers revival, closed in 2024. A sector survey published in 2026 with Manchester Animation Festival counted 1,665 people working in Greater Manchester animation in 2025, more than three-quarters of them freelance, and a 2024 BFI mapping placed the region third in the UK for core animation companies, behind London and the South East. The most visible recent result came in 2026, when One6th’s stop-motion short Two Black Boys in Paradise won the BAFTA for British Short Animation.

Every studio here has a working base in Greater Manchester in 2026, whether in the Northern Quarter, at MediaCityUK in Salford or in Altrincham. The list is unranked. Most of these studios are small, so the right one depends on the technique you need, your schedule and who will be doing the work.

The best animation studios in Manchester

1. Mackinnon & Saunders

Independent · Altrincham · mackinnonandsaunders.com

Mackinnon & Saunders is a puppet maker and animation producer in Altrincham, founded by Ian Mackinnon and Peter Saunders after their time at Cosgrove Hall. It has built puppets for Corpse Bride, Frankenweenie, Fantastic Mr. Fox and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, and for television series including Postman Pat and Pingu. Greater Manchester’s Creative Industries Sector Development Plan names it as one of the region’s creative assets.

Its recent projects include work connected to Wednesday and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, a Corpse Bride 20th anniversary project and the children’s series BooSnoo! It also makes commercials and has a Digital Studios division for 2D animation. Brands that need physical characters, or puppets for a live-action shoot, will find few studios in Europe with a comparable track record.

2. One6th Animation Studio

Independent · Manchester · one6th.com

One6th is a stop-motion studio founded in Manchester in 2018 by director Baz Sells and producer Ben Jackson, who work together as Baz&Ben. Its short Two Black Boys in Paradise, adapted from a poem by Dean Atta and funded through the BFI Short Form Animation Fund, won the 2026 BAFTA for British Short Animation after picking up more than 20 festival awards, including the Grand Prix at Encounters and Best British Film at Manchester Animation Festival. The film was shot in a warehouse in Cheetham Hill and now streams on Channel 4.

Alongside its own films, One6th makes animation for clients and brands, with past projects including Squib for Bradford Literature Festival and a film for WAWWA Clothing. In January 2026 Baz&Ben signed with Strange Beast, a Passion Pictures company, for worldwide commercial representation, so advertising work may be contracted through Strange Beast in London.

3. Flipbook Studio

Independent · Manchester city centre · flipbookstudio.co.uk

Flipbook Studio is an animation and VFX studio founded in 2010 and based at Albion Wharf in central Manchester. It works across CGI, creatures, 2D and 3D animation and immersive installations, and its short Black Slide won the audience award for Best Short Film at the British Animation Awards, with nominations for an Annie and an Annecy Crystal.

Its episodic clients include Netflix, Sky, the BBC, Channel 4 and ZDF. Closer to home it made the animated films for the digital ceiling at Printworks in Manchester and BEASTS, an eight-minute multi-screen experience for Chester Zoo. It suits projects that mix animation with visual effects or need content for unusual screens.

4. Mighty Giant

Independent · Northern Quarter · mightygiant.co.uk

Mighty Giant is a small animation and motion design studio on Lever Street in the Northern Quarter, working since 2010. It covers 2D and 3D character animation, CGI and product visualisation, stop-motion and storyboarding, with a sizeable share of technical work in engineering, software and medical animation.

Clients named on its site include Jaguar Land Rover, the BBC, Chester Zoo, Dreams, ITV, PlayStation and the EFL, and it has made charity films for Save the Children, Children in Need and Shelter. Agencies make up a large part of its client base, which means it is used to slotting into someone else’s production schedule.

5. Kilogramme

Independent · Northern Quarter · kilogramme.co.uk

Kilogramme is a character animation studio on Tib Street in the Northern Quarter, founded in 2005 by former Cosgrove Hall animators. It works in 2D and 3D animation and motion graphics for adverts, title sequences, explainers and public information films.

Its portfolio includes One Sweet World for Ben & Jerry’s (commissioned through the agency Nice and Serious), films for The Wildlife Trusts, Veganuary, the Royal Ballet and Opera, the V&A and the University of Manchester, and broadcast work for CBBC, CITV and BBC Radio 4. It also has a run of work for Transport for Greater Manchester, which makes it a familiar name for local public-sector briefs.

6. Flow Creative

Independent · Northern Quarter · flowcreative.co.uk

Flow Creative is a design and animation studio founded in 2016 by creative director Karl Doran, based on Stevenson Square in the Northern Quarter. It started as a boutique motion studio and has grown into a wider creative agency, with motion design and character animation at its centre.

Much of its work is for charities, cultural bodies and purpose-led brands. Clients have included the BBC, BBC Children in Need, the Mental Health Foundation, Arts Council England, the British Council and Ministry of Sound. It is a sensible fit for campaigns where strategy and animation are wanted from the same team.

7. Krygon Studios

Founder-led · MediaCityUK · krygonstudios.com

Krygon Studios is a 3D character art and animation studio led by Bradley Harris, which took a residency in MediaCity’s new Content Studio in Salford in 2025. It works on high-end character animation, MetaHuman creation, motion capture and real-time production in Unreal for AAA games, television, film and live events.

Its best-known project is a large-scale digital figure for UFC 306 at the Sphere in Las Vegas, work that Prolific North reported won two Emmys. Other credits include Disney, National Geographic and Ghost Town Games, and it is developing children’s television using performance capture.

8. ThunderHawk

Founder-led · MediaCityUK · thunderhawk.studio

ThunderHawk is a motion design, 3D and VFX studio founded by Salford University graduate Matthew McHugh and incorporated in 2022, with its registered office at MediaCityUK. It moved into MediaCity’s Content Studio in 2025 and also works from London.

The studio is known for short-form brand animation and FOOH (fake out-of-home) campaigns, including a The North Face and JD Sports piece that appeared to project onto Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower. Other clients include Hasbro, Lego, Aldi, EA Sports FC, Manchester United and Office x Crocs. It suits retail and sports brands that need social-first CGI quickly.

What to look for in a Manchester animation studio

Start with technique. Manchester’s strengths split fairly cleanly: stop-motion and puppet fabrication (Mackinnon & Saunders, One6th), 2D character and motion design (Kilogramme, Flow Creative, Mighty Giant) and real-time 3D, CGI and VFX (Krygon, Flipbook, ThunderHawk). A studio that is excellent at one may subcontract the others, so ask what is made in-house.

Ask who will be on the project. Most studios here employ a small core team and bring in freelancers, which the 2026 sector survey found make up the large majority of the region’s animation workforce. That model is efficient, but it means the animators on your job may not be the ones on the showreel. Ask for named leads and an idea of how many freelancers will be booked.

Be realistic about schedules. Stop-motion and puppet builds take weeks before a single frame is shot, while motion design and FOOH campaigns can turn around in days. Agree the number of review rounds and what counts as sign-off at animatic, style frame and final render stage before production begins.

Finally, settle how files and feedback will move. Animation produces large project files, renders and many versions of the same shot, and feedback scattered across email makes it hard to know which version was approved. Studios with one shared place for the latest cuts, and a clear record of client comments, tend to run smoother projects.

How Fabric helps animation teams

Fabric gives animation studios one workspace for project files, client feedback and team knowledge, with AI search across all of it. The motion design setup is built around the way small studios work: one space per project, with scripts, boards, style frames, renders and call notes kept together.

Scene files and renders sit in Fabric’s cloud drive, which streams files on demand so they take no local disk space, and shared team folders always show the latest version. There is more on this in why rendering files need a home. Search works by meaning across documents, images and transcribed recordings, and similar search finds related frames or references from a selected image, using composition, colour and subject.

For pre-production, Canvas is an infinite whiteboard for moodboards and storyboards, with Figma, YouTube and Vimeo embeds. A Kanban board can turn a shots folder into a pipeline whose cards are the files themselves.

Clients can review work through a shared link without creating an account and leave threaded comments on any file. Commenters can also leave timestamped comments on video and draw on any video frame. Animatics and cuts can be published as a web page, protected with a password, and tracked with link analytics to see when each named recipient opened them.

Password protection and link analytics are included on Pro and Team plans. See plans for teams.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best animation studio in Manchester?

It depends on the technique. On 2026 recognition, One6th won the BAFTA for British Short Animation with Two Black Boys in Paradise, and Mackinnon & Saunders has built puppets for films including Corpse Bride and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. For motion design and CGI, Kilogramme, Flipbook Studio and ThunderHawk each have strong brand and broadcast portfolios.

Are there stop-motion studios in Manchester?

Yes. Mackinnon & Saunders in Altrincham builds puppets for feature films and television, and One6th makes stop-motion shorts and commercials from its Manchester studio. Mighty Giant also offers stop-motion for brand work.

How big is the animation industry in Greater Manchester?

A sector survey published in 2026 with Manchester Animation Festival counted 1,665 people working in the region’s animation sector in 2025, of whom 1,285 were freelancers. Most companies are small: 64% have ten employees or fewer.

What happened to Cosgrove Hall?

Cosgrove Hall, the Manchester studio behind Danger Mouse, Count Duckula and The Wind in the Willows, closed in 2009. Its former animators founded several studios that still work in the region, including Mackinnon & Saunders and Kilogramme.

Which Manchester studios handle VFX as well as animation?

Flipbook Studio and ThunderHawk both combine animation with visual effects, and Krygon works in real-time 3D for games and live events.

Related lists

Animation studios in other cities: New York · London · Los Angeles · Chicago · Toronto

More in Manchester: Creative agencies · Video production · Post-production · Sound design · Content studios

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