New Report –  Arts, Culture and Heritage: Recent Trends in UK Workforce and Engagement in England

The report provides fresh insight on arts, culture and heritage workforce and participation following Covid, and shows that while engagement is up across England, inequalities have increased.

Download the new report

Key findings: 

•            There are only 13 English local authorities where over 50% of the population has been to an art exhibition in the last twelve months – all 13 are in London. 

•            The local authority with the highest percentage of residents visiting an art gallery in the last 12 months is the City of London, at 70%; the local authority with the fewest is Boston, Lincolnshire at 11%.  

•            Other local authorities where the figure is high are Brighton and Hove (49%) and Oxford (46%); outside of the south of England, the highest figure is for York (37%). 

•            Local authorities with more people working in Arts, Culture and Heritage (ACH) also have greater rates of engagement. 

•            The majority of areas showing this relationship are London boroughs, with the highest areas outside of London being Cambridge, Brighton and Hove, Oxford, Bristol and Waverley (Surrey). 

•            There has been a widening gap in the last year between who engages with Arts, culture and Heritage by socio-economic background. For example, there has been a 9% increase in the gap between ‘professional / managerial / middle class’ and ‘semi-routine / working class’ people attending a live music performance, and a 7% increase in the gap for ‘attending an art exhibition’.

To coincide with the report’s release, an interactive dashboard has been published. This tool supports those responsible for local growth and cultural planning to delve further into regional and local data.  

The report has been produced for the Creative PEC by Professor Dave O’Brien, Dr Mark Taylor and Dr Ruoxi Wang. The Creative PEC is funded by the AHRC.