UAL and Artquest present 'Who gets to be an artist?' report findings to APPG for Visual Arts and Artists

Last week, members of the APPG for Visual Arts and Artists sat down with representatives from UAL and Artquest to disscuss their recent report exploring who gets to be an artist in the UK today.

Who gets to be an artist?

As a country, we are so proud of our incredible creative industries – and our visual arts sector is particularly special. The UK has produced some of the world’s best known and most successful artists – from David Hockney, Sonia Boyce, and Barbara Hepworth, to William Turner, Thomas Gainsborough, and so many more – and people flock here from all over to study at the best art schools and visit some of the greatest museums and galleries in the world.

The arts are a British success story, but is a career as an artist accessible to all? We think that anyone who wants to be an artist, should get to be one – but in October, University of the Arts London and Artquest published a new report that ultimately illustrates that this career path is not within reach for all.

Using data from the ongoing Applied data partnership, we looked at a number of factors, including demographics, income, and responses to the rising cost of living, to consider who actually gets to be an artist in the UK today, and whether access to a career in this vital industry is equitable and accessible.

What we found

Artists come from more privileged backgrounds
They were 3 times more likely to have attended a fee-paying school, and they trended towards the most advantaged socioeconomic backgrounds. Sadly, when creative education in state schools has been in a well-documented decline, but private schools have continued to invest in their creative offering, the type of school you go to matters. And when creativity has been squeezed in the curriculum, the burden shifts onto families to pay for extracurricular offerings – meaning only those who can afford to pay can begin developing those foundational creative skills.

Artists are highly educated
Nearly all our artists had a degree, and almost half had a postgraduate degree. Whilst not a requirement for a career as an artist, this finding feels telling – and at UAL we know the benefits of a creative degree are expansive. But access to higher education is not equal. Young people from more affluent backgrounds are still more likely to go to university than those from disadvantaged backgrounds, and research has shown this to be a particularly acute problem for creative degrees.

Financial precarity defines access
Only 41% of our artists regularly earned money from their practice – a stark statistic that means artists are inevitably having to supplement their income elsewhere, with almost a third regularly earning money completely outside of the arts or creative industries.

Over a quarter of artists didn’t have enough savings to last them even one month and amidst a rapidly increasing cost of living, many artists had accessed emergency financial support in the last year to get by – whilst nearly 40% had accessed a mental health support service, and 14% had used a foodbank. 

Nearly a third had taken on more debt to support themselves, and a third of artists had seen an increase in time spent on work outside of their practice in the last year. Meanwhile, about a quarter of our artists had actually taken on that kind of work for the first time. 

These findings all add to a picture of financial precarity that is much easier to weather if you have access to other forms of private wealth, or with a family or loved ones with the means to support you. For artists who are not so privileged, maintaining their practice over time can be difficult.

What does it all mean?

What emerges is a troubling picture where access to a stable artistic career is closely tied to privilege. The findings paint a concerning picture of precarity – although this won’t come as a surprise to many in the sector who live this experience every day. As it stands, there are clear socioeconomic factors that impact an artist’s career trajectory – with those who are independently wealthy or have other financial support being more able to withstand the financial insecurity the report highlights. 

What do we do about it?

Whilst there are no quick fixes, there is work that governments and policymakers can do:

• to expand access to creative education at all levels;
• to champion the value of the creative sector more broadly; and
• to address the precarity and turbulence in self-employment and freelancing, in the arts, the creative industries, and beyond.

But we also know that it’s not just policy that needs to change – universities could be doing more to address access and participation, and the creative sector itself has work to do to address longstanding norms that keep conditions precarious and put pressure on artists and creatives to work for low – or no – pay, ‘for exposure’.

These changes matter – in a sector so important to not only our economy but our culture, too, it is vital that we get to a place where anyone who wants to be an artist, gets to be. 

About the author

This article was written by the Social Purpose Lab team at UAL. UAL is a world-leading university for art, design, fashion, performance, and communication. Ranked second in the world for art and design courses, UAL has produced some of the world’s best-known artists, and our graduates can be found in all corners of the creative industries.

Artquest, a free-to-access public programme of UAL funded by Arts Council England since 2001, focuses on making the art world fairer. It does this through campaigns to improve working conditions for artists, practical support and guidance for professional practitioners, and research into how artists work and sustain their careers.