Freelance work & fair pay
© Ian Davenport. All Rights Reserved, DACS/Artimage 2024
The endemic low pay and precarity faced by visual artists creates significant barriers to opportunity for those from lower income backgrounds. Without better support for freelance artists, there is a risk of a talent drain from the visual arts, which are a crucial part of the UK’s £126billion Creative Industries, and a key factor in the UK’s position as a cultural leader on the international stage.
DACS advocates for fair pay and improved working conditions for artists, on behalf of our members and all artists.
Artists' Earnings Research
In 2024 we commissioned CREATe, University of Glasgow to deliver research into artists' earnings in the UK, to build a clear and comprehensive picture of artists’ earnings today and how they are generating income, to understand the challenges they face in sustaining their practice.
A survey of over 1200 artists found that:
- The median earnings for visual artists is £12,500, a 47% decrease since 2010.
- 81% of visual artists describe their earnings as an artist as 'unstable' or 'very unstable'.
- 65% of visual artists earn below the national minimum wage.
- Women artists and artists of other genders earn 40% less than men.
- Disabled respondents earn 70% less than non-disabled respondents.
- 51% of visual artists who responded had second jobs, 41% of them in non-creative fields. Even with these additional sources of income, the median earnings for visual artists is £17,500.
Freelance Labour
DACS has joined calls led by the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS), for a Freelancer Commissioner to help the Government better understand the challenges faced by the UK's freelance workforce, including artists and other creative workers. DACS works with organisations across the creative industries to campaign for better support for freelancers across the sector, including ALCS, BECS, Creative UK, Directors UK, and the Creators' Rights Alliance.
In April 2024, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee recommended the appointment of a Freelancer Commissioner, to advocate to government in the interest of creative freelancers, and the wider self-employed workforce, in their Creator Remuneration report.
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Freelancers make up a huge proportion of the jobs in the Creative Industries: 49% of the cultural sector workforce are freelance workers whilst 70% of visual arts workers are freelancers, vastly exceeding the national average of 16%.
This figure encompasses the majority of artists and creators, as well as producers, curators, writers and technicians, with many freelancers having mixed roles, such as artists and curators who are teachers, lecturers and freelance writers, or who have contracted part-time employment.
Despite their value to the sector and their contributions – both economic and cultural – to the UK, freelance workers have been poorly served by many parts of the policy infrastructure. In addition, the precarity of freelance labour within the visual arts reinforces inequality in the sector, positioning creative careers as only for those with the means to take on precarious and short-term projects for low pay.
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We are calling for a dedicated Commissioner to help Government understand and work with the UK’s freelancer workforce as we recognise that this need extends beyond just the creative sector. We recommend that a Creative Freelancer Commissioner should sit between the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department for Work and Pensions, encouraging a clearer understanding of the unique challenges faced by freelance workers across departments. As part of the role the Commissioner would be required to hold regular roundtables with different sectors, including the Creative Industries, with representatives from membership organisations and freelancers themselves.
A Creative Freelance Commissioner would successfully plug the gap in knowledge currently held around self-employed work in the UK. This position would champion the vital role freelance, self-employed and atypical workers play across the creative and cultural sectors while identifying and finding solutions to unintentional systemic challenges that they face.
DACS is a member of the Visual Arts Alliance, formed during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure that the value and importance of artists, art workers and the sector as a whole was recognised and protected at a time of national crisis. The Alliance continues to campaign on issues including the continuation of the Museums and Galleries Exhibition Tax Relief and for investment that benefits individual artists and freelance workers.
