The series was commissioned by the BBC in August 2021 and is a dramatisation of the real 1983 Brink's-Mat robbery, at the time the biggest robbery in history.

Creator and writer Neil Forsyth co-wrote a companion book with Thomas Turner, titled 'The Gold: The real story behind Brink's-Mat: Britain's biggest heist', based on extensive interviews with people involved in the real events.

Forsyth stated the show deliberately avoided a black-and-white moral reading of the criminals, noting 'No-one in the show is an out-and-out criminal living in a world dictated by criminality. They've got families and lives.'

Principal photography began in April 2022, with filming taking place across the UK and Spain, including at Dorchester Prison in July 2022.

The show was renewed for a second series in November 2023, with filming for it scheduled to start in January 2024.

The opening episode of the first series eventually attracted ten million viewers in Britain, with particularly high figures through the BBC iPlayer catch-up service.

The sympathetic portrayal of real-life criminal Kenneth Noye drew criticism from the family of the man he murdered and from a police officer involved in his conviction, as well as from investigative journalist Roger Cook, who had confronted John Palmer in 1994.

The series received international acclaim, with reviews comparing it favourably to prestige American television and, in Spain's El Periódico, likening it to The Sopranos for how prosaic its antiheroes are.