How do artists earn money, how much do they earn, and what do they do to earn it? What are the motivations and inspiration behind being an artist?

a-n, Arts Council England, Artquest and our partners held a survey in March 2016 to find out, so that we can advocate for better working conditions for artists.

Results were studied and reviewed by Arts Council England and TBR, with a report finally published in December 2018. Over 2,000 artists replied to the survey, making it one of the most comprehensive undertaken.

Artists Livelihoods report logo - an outline of England filled in with money-related words

The study sought to complement and validate three areas of strength emerged in existing research: the studies by a-n to support the Paying Artists campaign, the long-running series of reports authored by Professor David Throsby (and colleagues) tracking the fate of artists in Australia, and the work of Hans Abbing, a Dutch artist and economist. This research was designed to complement these studies.

As a result of the gaps in the research landscape identified in this report, and in artist workforce research more generally, Artquest initiated Applied in 2017. Applied builds ongoing data collection and insight across a partnership of six organisations, focussing on artists demographics, barriers and professional ambitions. Our work seeks to understand artists demographics across sub-artforms and socio-economic background. Public dashboards of data collected since 2017 are in preparation: join our email newsletter or follow us on Twitter to find out when these are available.

Read the whole report and summaries on the Arts Council England site. The main findings of this report were:

Demographics

  • Artists tended to be older than the average workforce
  • Women were well represented (relative to the national workforce as a whole)
  • Artists from global majority backgrounds and disabled artists were under-represented in the workforce population
  • More evidence was needed regarding social background, education levels, marital status and caring responsibilities
  • There is little disaggregation of the visual artists workforce into sub-artforms (media, sculpture, painting etc)

Barriers

Existing evidence identified three key barriers to career sustainability:

  • lack of work opportunities,
  • lack of financial return,
  • lack of time to spend on artistic practice.

This survey found the main barriers to developing and continuing a career as a visual artist are financial:

  • low payments for work,
  • expectations that visual artists will work without pay and
  • the cost of materials, studio space, travel, and accommodation

All these factors contribute to visual artists earning less in comparison to other similarly qualified careers. Surveys previous to this report have found that visual artists’ earnings from their art are low:

  • a-n and AIR’s Big Artists Survey (2011) found that the average annual turnover visual artists made from their practice was around £9,000.
  • DACS Artist Salary Research (2010) found that the national median wage for a fine artist in 2010 was £10,000 – less than half of the average UK salary at the time.

Motivations

Visual artists are not solely motivated by financial reward and seek instead to achieve other goals such, as industry recognition and profile-raising.

Evidence suggests that visual artists face economic challenges that impact decisions about beginning or continuing in their career.

Most artists seek artistic fulfilment and personal well-being. Although they are not primarily motivated by financial rewards, this does feature as the third most regularly cited motivator.

The key motivating factors across visual artists generally are:

  • artistic fulfilment (70% of artists identified this in their top three motivators),
  • personal wellbeing or enjoyment (38%) and
  • financial remuneration (36%).

Incomes

The average income derived from art practice in 2015 was £6,020.

  • 69% of artists earned £20,000 or less in 2015 from all sources of income.
  • Income from art practice represents 36% of total income.
  • Around 66% of visual artists earned less than £5,000 in the previous year from their art practice. Only 7% of artists earned more than £20,000 from their practice.

Many artists supplement their income with other jobs because income is so low for art practice and the work can be unstable and sporadic.

Generally, the more time visual artists can spend on their art, the more they can earn from that art. But because incomes from arts practice alone are low, visual artists take other jobs to supplement their income, which in turn reduces the time available to spend on their arts practice.

68% of visual artists have additional jobs with one in five having three or more different jobs. 91% of artists between 19 and 29 have at least one additional job.

Whilst additional jobs are crucial:

  • 38% of artists also rely on partner’s income
  • 37% on personal savings
  • 23% on support from family or friends
  • 16% on tax credits
  • 10% on other state benefits

The mean average total income for artists across the UK in 2015 was £16,150 per annum, less than the national living wage for 2015 (£16,302 p.a. outside London and £18,570 p.a. within London). The average annual salary of full-time workers in the UK in 2015 was £27,600.

Incomes vary according to demographics:

  • Female visual artists earn around £5,000 per year less than men (average total income of £14,800 for women, £19,800 for men)
  • Male artists earn significantly more on average from their arts practice (£7,780) than women (£5,370).
  • Disabled artists have a significantly lower average total income (£11,330) than able-bodied artists (£16,600).
  • Disabled artists earn less (£3,600) from their art practice than artists who are not disabled (£6,200).
  • Average annual incomes from art practice reaches a maximum in the 40-49 age group at £7,600 p.a.
  • The two most frequently named sources of artistic income were private sales and Local Authority/public body commissions.

In 2014 Artquest published a literature review, The Value of Money, looking at available research around motivations and money for artists.

Get in touch if you are interested in working with us on understanding artists working conditions.

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