Prince William, 42, attended the event last year, but it is understood he was not planning on being at the star-studded ceremony on Sunday, in his role as president of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.
The future king has not attended consecutive years since he took on his formal role in 2010, succeeding the actor and director Richard Attenborough.
The Princess of Wales will also not be at the red-carpet occasion, Kensington Palace confirmed.
Kate has previously joined her husband at the annual ceremony, but didn’t make last year’s after it was announced that she had undergone abdominal surgery. The following month, the royal revealed that she was undergoing treatment for cancer.
While William won’t be attending the event this weekend, he will be championing future talent when he helps young filmmakers shoot a movie.
His focus will be on the next generation when he visits the London Screen Academy, a sixth form in Highbury created to address the skills shortage and lack of diversity in the UK screen and creative industries.
It provides students with hands-on skills and training through a range of courses including film production, costume, editing and animation alongside traditional qualifications like maths or English A-level.
During his visit, William will tour the academy and meet students taking part in a collaboration project, which sees Year 13 students come together across four pathways – craft, technical, post-production, and production management – to transform the school into a working film set to shoot a short film.
This year’s film is called Melomania, and the young movie makers will explain their involvement to the prince who will visit the set and help them shoot a scene.
In previous years Kate’s appearances at the Baftas have helped to throw a spotlight on British fashion brands she has patronised.
She first attended the event in 2017. The couple took a break in 2021, just before Prince Philip died, and again in 2022, due to diary constraints, before a triumphant return in 2023 when the ceremony paid tribute to the late Queen.
In 2018 Kate even attended the Baftas while heavily pregnant with Prince Louis, who was born two months later.
Meanwhile, Ralph Fiennes has beaten box-office juggernauts Gladiator 2 and Wicked to win 12 BAFTA nominations including best actor and best film for his movie Conclave.
The British actor, 62, won his first and only BAFTA 32 years ago for his hit holocaust film, Schindler’s List, and is tipped to win again for his role in the thriller about finding a new Pope based in the Vatican City.
Back on home soil, Conclave has been nominated for twice as many gongs at the BAFTAs than it was earlier this month at the Golden Globes in Los Angeles.
The hit thriller starring Fiennes, Stanley Tucci and Isabella Rossellini is about a secretive and high-stakes election of a new Pope, where power, ambition, and personal secrets collide among the warring cardinals.
It has beaten the Golden Globes’ big winner, the Spanish drama Emilia Perez, which has come in second in the number of nominations with 11 BAFTA nods after sweeping up 10 gongs in the US award ceremony.
Gladiator 2 has yet again been snubbed by Award judges after it was shunned for Best Film and its leading man, the Irish star Paul Mescal, 28, failed to make the BAFTA longlist for Best Actor.
It comes after Ridley Scott’s epic was snubbed at the Golden Globes in the US earlier this month after it was nominated for just two awards and failed to take any home.
Denzel Washington, 70, who played Macrinus, was long-listed as a supporting actor but has been bumped off the nominations list by BAFTA judges.
British actress, Kate Winslet, 49, has similarly dropped out of the running for a BAFTA for her role as Lee Miller in the war photographer’s biopic after being included in the longlist last month.
