Does Industrial Light & Magic pay their employees well?

According to anonymously submitted Glassdoor reviews, Industrial Light & Magic employees rate their compensation and benefits as 3.6 out of 5. Find out more about salaries and benefits at Industrial Light & Magic. This rating has decreased by 2% over the last 12 months.

How satisfied are employees working at Industrial Light & Magic?

86% of Industrial Light & Magic employees would recommend working there to a friend based on Glassdoor reviews . Employees also rated Industrial Light & Magic 4.0 out of 5 for work life balance, 4.6 for culture and values and 3.8 for career opportunities.

What are the top reviewed jobs at Industrial Light & Magic?

Production Assistant (16) , Production Coordinator (15) , VFX Production Coordinator (11) , Animator (10) , Digital Artist (10) , VFX Artist (9) , Creature Technical Director (8) , Nuke Compositor (8) , Texture Artist (8) , Compositor (7) , 3D Animator (6) , 3D Artist (6) , Technical Director (6) , 3D Generalist (5) , Artist (5)

What are the pros of working at Industrial Light & Magic according to real employee reviews?

"Great people to work with" ((in 53 reviews)); "This text field required me to write at least five words so I am writing this sentence because the only thing I really want to put here is Good Benefits." ((in 15 reviews)); "People and culture are great and they pay really well compared to most studios." ((in 14 reviews)); "great team and great projects" ((in 11 reviews)); "Great colleagues and collaborative environment." ((in 10 reviews))

What are the cons of working at Industrial Light & Magic according to real employee reviews?

"Low pay and lots of overtime" ((in 23 reviews)); "I would highly recommend looking elsewhere for work, VFX is a dead end industry that is failing due to poor management and outsourcing." ((in 14 reviews)); "Growth bottlenecks and low salaries for the industry." ((in 11 reviews)); "Long hours and stressful during project crunch" ((in 11 reviews)); "Managers are not aware that this only deepens the current problem." ((in 6 reviews))

What are employees saying about Industrial Light & Magic layoffs in 2026?

Explore Glassdoor’s employee reviews to understand what current and former employees are saying about Industrial Light & Magic layoffs and their outlook for job security at Industrial Light & Magic in 2026.

Industrial Light & Magic reviews

4.2

86% would recommend to a friend

(322 total reviews)

Lynwen Brennan

89% approve of CEO

74% positive business outlook

Company ratings over time

Ratings trend for the last 6 months (322 reviews)

Ratings by demographic groups

Race / Ethnicity

Gender

Sexual orientation

Disability

Parent or family caregiver

Veteran status

Industrial Light & Magic has an employee rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars, based on 322 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The Industrial Light & Magic employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Media and communication industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

322 reviews

1.0

Jan 4, 2018

If you're looking for IT work.. AVOID

Anonymous employee

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

Prestigious company, some nice little perks (swag, screenings), some great clever people

Cons

Awful micromanaging management, Poor work environment, utter absence of respect for staff, constant failed promises that things will improve, huge conflicts of ego and nepotism.

1.0

Oct 19, 2017

Disappointing

Vfx production coordinator

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

Talented artists (for the most part).

Cons

Insane hours, zero staff appreciation, poorly managed, a lot of egos, very corporate atmosphere.

4.0

Aug 19, 2021

Long hours, better than some, worse than others

Vfx line producer

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

- Good variety of work available on lots of different projects, both TV, film, and some new tech coming through. - Really nice artists and production to work with for the most part. Professional and hardworking. - Quite nice offices in Holborn, but mostly still working from home atm. - Decent pay for the industry, would be in the top band.

Cons

- Long hours. True of most VFX jobs, but I found at ILM a 10 hour day is pretty standard, often more. Liasing with Vancouver, San Fran, Singapore and now Sydney means calls from 9am to 7pm pretty regularly. - They work you hard. Often tasked with the work of 1.2 or 1.5 people so expect to be constantly going with little downtime. - High turnover of staff due to burnout means a lot of rescheduling work and trying to make unrealistic targets fit into a pre-defined schedule (I know it's VFX right?). - ILM definitely schedule shows over 100% capacity both on artists and production. You will be working lates. - A lot of pressure on artists to work unpaid overtime to get shots through. Leads working massive hours with the usual 'we just gotta do it to get the work done' mentality. Quite high-pressure environment justified with an unspoken 'we are lucky to work at ILM - it's star wars!'.

Viewing 1 - 3 of 322 Reviews

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