ABOUT TOM

I grew up in a recording booth, not a green room.

From age 11 to 22, voiceover work ran alongside the rest of my life — school, exams, and growing up. Here's the actual story, not the highlight reel.

TALENT: TOM EST. 11Y OLD

"I left school with £25,000 in earnings and a CV line that still gets asked about in every interview I've ever had."

I didn't come from an industry family. No agent parents, no stage-school background, no contacts. What I had was a voice people noticed, and a family willing to figure things out as we went — one audition, one booking, one mistake at a time.

That's the part nobody tells you about getting a child into voiceover: it's less about talent and more about knowing what to do next. Local Vocal Lab exists because I spent over a decade learning that, and I'd rather hand it to you directly than watch you learn it the slow way, like my own parents had to.

HOW IT ACTUALLY WENT

Eleven years, in brief.

Not a highlight reel — the actual shape of a working childhood in voiceover.

AGE 11

The first booking

No formal training, no agent yet — just a clear reading voice and parents willing to look into what a "voiceover audition" even was. The first job paid more than either of us expected for an afternoon's work.

AGES 12–15

Learning the actual industry

Regular bookings, my first proper agent, and the unglamorous parts: travelling to sessions around school hours, understanding contracts, and learning to take direction from adults without it being a big deal.

AGES 16–19

Abbey Road, and the rooms that came with it

By this stage, sessions were landing in genuinely well-known studios — Abbey Road among them — alongside established names in the industry. This is also where I learned how much of the work is just professionalism: being easy to work with, on time, and prepared.

AGES 19–22

Leaving school with £25,000 earned

By the time formal education wrapped up, the work had paid for things most teenagers don't have to think about, and left me with a body of experience that's opened doors in every job I've had since — voiceover or not.

"The money was the part people ask about first. The part that actually changed things was everything underneath it — confidence with adults, comfort being directed, and knowing how to walk into a room I had no business being intimidated by."

— TOM, FOUNDER, LOCAL VOCAL LAB
WHY LOCAL VOCAL LAB EXISTS

I built this for the parents my own parents once were.

Curious, a bit out of their depth, and with no one to ask. Local Vocal Lab is the resource I wish had existed back then — practical, honest, and built by someone who actually did the thing, not just someone who studied it from the outside.

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