Joseph Bell Announces VFX & Animation World Atlas 2026

Joseph Bell Announces VFX & Animation World Atlas 2026

Joseph Bell August 28, 2026

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Joseph Bell's Visual Effects & Animation World Atlas 2026 is available now for its third annual edition. Download the Atlas for free at www.vfxatlas.com.

Behind the Numbers In 2024, the first edition of the Atlas captured the attention of visual effects professionals, movie studios, policymakers, and investors with the most detailed and up-to-date picture of the global Visual Effects industry to date. Since then, the Atlas has become one of the most widely circulated publications in the industry, with more than 10,000 readers from 100 countries. The project has collected 1.1 million datapoints, tracking workforce, skillsets, and company dynamics around the world. This year's edition covers over 140,000 Visual Effects and Animation professionals working at 2,900 companies.

Visual Effects grew from a small handful of companies into a multi-billion-dollar global industry in just two decades. It's still a poorly understood business. says author Joseph Bell, who spent two decades as a Visual Effects Producer, EP and studio leader. You can spend thousands on a market research report that claims 1,000,000 people work in Visual Effects worldwide. You can commission an expert study that overestimates the size of the workforce in a key market by 250%. Unfortunately, these wildly inaccurate numbers get picked up by reputable news outlets and industry decisionmakers. The Atlas was created to counteract this by providing reliable, objective data informed by years of hands-on experience in the industry.

Key Facts from the 2026 Edition

Net industry growth over the past 12 months was 2.7%, up from 1% the 12 months prior.

The workforce in Los Angeles contracted by 1.5% in the past 12 months, similar to the 12 months prior. Nevertheless, LA remains the largest hub for VFX and Animation combined.

The largest VFX hub in the world is Mumbai, where the workforce grew 4% in the past 12 months (up from 3% growth in the 12 months prior).

India, Spain, France, Australia and Canada are the major Hollywood VFX and Animation markets to show net growth over the past 12 month.

Among Canadian hubs, Vancouver's workforce rebounded by 11.3% in the past 12 months. Montreal remained unchanged over the past 12 months after losing more than 50% of their workforce between 2022 and 2025. Toronto contracted slightly (-3.3%) over the past 12 months.

Chennai and Hyderabad are the fastest growing talent pools among the top 10 hubs, growing 10.8% and 7.8% over the past 12 months respectively.

10% of the industry works remotely, up from 8.7% in 2025.

Global VFX Studios After the collapse of Technicolor and MPC in February 2025, there's been speculation that we'll see another global scale Visual Effects studio go under before the industry stabilizes, continues Joseph. DNEG, Industrial Light & Magic and Framestore are the three largest Visual Effects and Animation studios today. Together, they employ 12.3% of the global workforce, up from 11% in 2025. The real threat is not lack of projects, but the consistently challenging business environment in Visual Effects and Animation studios operate. Technicolor was ultimately brought down by unsustainable debt, not a lack of demand for their services.

Ireland Ireland is one of this year's standout success stories. The country's Visual Effects and Animation workforce has grown 13.8% in just 12 months, driven by an increase in roles at Irish animation studios. That trend is likely to continue thanks to enhanced Irish tax incentives, which were announced in October 2025 and went into effect in July 2026.

AI In 2023, Jeffrey Katzenberg predicted that the number of artists needed to create a world-class animated movie would fall from 500 to fewer than 50 by 2026.

Comments like Katzenberg's popularized the notion that employment in the Visual Effects and Animation industry had already been slashed due to AI, comments Joseph. There's no evidence of this in the data. AI-specific roles are among the smallest groups in our dataset - just 0.1% of roles at traditional Visual Effects and Animation studios in 2026. They are becoming more common, however, increasing 68% over the past 12 months.

AI has not yet replaced a significant number of roles at traditional Visual Effects and Animation studios. Nor has it created many new roles at these companies. The impact is more subtle. AI tools are being adopted by artists in their existing roles, says Joseph Bell.

The VFX and Animation World Atlas 2026 also notes that Roto / Paint roles have increased 8.7% over the past 12 months, suggesting that AI is not yet ready to take over that work. Other in-demand skillsets include Environment / Digimatte artists ( 9.3%), Roto / Paint ( 8.7%), FX Simulation ( 6.1%) and Creature Technical Direction roles ( 5.2%). Business Development roles increased 12% in the past 12 months, suggesting that studios need to work harder to secure business in today's competitive global industry. Matchmove and Tracking roles are down 1.3% globally, implying a modest increase in efficiency for that work.

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