Over half of unionised artists earn under £15,000

Most artists belonging to the Artists’ Union England (AUE) are earning far below the UK median wage, according to a new report published by the union and artist-run organisation Industria.

The report, From ‘Hand to Mouth to Bread and Roses’ collates 2024 AUE membership survey data alongside findings from recent studies of artists’ livelihoods to document the impact of deteriorating material conditions and shrinking social safety nets on those working in the industry.

In the report, AUE says its members are “at the sharp end of capitalism” and are “locked into low incomes under the current system”.

Survey results reveal that over half of respondents earn under £15,000 annually across all types of work, while almost three-quarters (72%) earn less than £20,000. Most respondents (96.4%) to the survey reported earning below the UK median wage of £35,004.

AUE says these headline statistics highlight “another kind of dark matter – a sign of the unwaged and under-waged work the majority of artists undertake”.

The report goes on to highlight that artists’ incomes are “probably even worse than most data suggests”, pointing out that the scale used to gather incomes in the membership survey needed to be finer to demonstrate how much below £15,000 the median income actually sits.

“It is therefore essential that future research into artists’ pay and livelihoods deals precisely with income and expenses to clarify the conditions artists are dealing with at the bottom layers of the art pyramid,” the report adds.

Extra jobs

Over three-quarters (79%) of AUE members said they do not earn enough from their art practice to live on and are forced to take on additional jobs outside the sector.

Two-fifths indicated they have an additional PAYE job, 44.6% of which are outside of the arts sector.

The report explains that many AUE members engage in less intermittent freelance work to plug the gaps between their low incomes from their artistic practice and PAYE jobs.

“For the median artist, the prescription of a ‘portfolio lifestyle’ as a solution to a lack of artistic income clearly isn’t working well enough to guarantee meeting even the basic benchmark of a minimum wage,” it adds.

Meanwhile, a third of respondents said they rely on financial support from family or a spouse in order to keep working as artists. The report says this statistic implies “how much artists without recourse to these financially supportive relationships will struggle to survive on such small incomes”.

No savings

Most of AUE’s members also revealed they have little savings and no pension plan.

Three-quarters of survey respondents said they have financial concerns about reaching retirement age.

The majority (78%) said they are not making voluntary payments to a pension as part of their self-employment, while 71% added that they are not making payments to a pension scheme through PAYE jobs either.

The report says these findings make it “abundantly clear that artists are dealing with the ticking time bomb of even greater future precarity”.

Some respondents shared testimonies about how planning for the future affects them. One union member in their twenties said: “Girl, I am never gonna retire lol just like my mummy”.

“I’m 52 and have been paying some peanuts into a pension for only one year,” said another respondent. “I have no pension to speak of, no savings, minimal income.”

Other respondents vocalised feeling “scared”, “terrified” and “paralysed” by the future, with several raising fears of having to work their entire lives, while one respondent disclosed they attempted suicide over having nothing for a pension.

“While art is so often depicted as a labour of love, these responses make the stark realities of life as an artist clear,” the report reads. 

“Rather than choosing to keep making art for art’s sake, artists feel they will be compelled to keep hustling into old age in order to top up insufficient or non-existent pensions. The anxiety of being physically unable to keep going without a safety net looms large.”

‘Crisis’

Loraine Monk, AUE joint chair, commented that the report highlights the crisis that exists in the UK’s creative industries and called on the government to respond urgently.

“If they value the creative industries as they say they do, they need to act on this by supporting the sector in all its variations, at all levels,” Monk said. “Working as a visual artist should never be a privilege for those who have inherited wealth.”

Monk added that the government must listen to voices that want real change.

“The arts of a society should reflect its health and wealth in the progressive ideas it inspires, and the pleasure it produces; truly reflecting the diversity of all of its people,” Monk said. “Without that, it is truly bankrupt.”

Industria’s latest report builds on Structurally F-cked, an inquiry into artists’ pay and working conditions, published alongside a-n in March 2023.