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2.15 Archaeologists’ Length of Employment & Experience

Latest Data: 2020

This page reviews the amount of time archaeologists have been with their current organisations or for how long they have been self-employed. It also reviews how long they have been working in archaeology.

Highlights

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The Profiling the Profession series has been tracking how long archaeologists have been working for an organisation since the first survey in 1997. Previously these data have been provided by employers; in 2019-20 these were captured by the individuals survey, which includes self-employed archaeologists (see methods). Before 2007-08, more detailed data were not collected for periods of over two years at the same employer. There are fluctuations from survey to survey and so no clear trends have appeared, other than a slight increase in the number of people who have worked for the same organisation / been self-employed for more than two years. The 2019-20 data include both primary and secondary jobs – in 2019-20 individuals were asked for details on second, third, etc. jobs.

Table 2.15.1: Length of current employment (at an organisation or self-employed) – professional archaeologists, 1997-20.

Period of current employment 1997-98 2002-03 2007-08 2012-2013 2019-20
Count % Count % Count % Count % Count %
up to 3 months 206 10% 231 10% 149 6% 39 5% 26 3%
3 – 6 months 105 5% 145 7% 179 7% 33 4% 45 5%
6 – 12 months 111 6% 232 10% 226 9% 55 7% 47 5%
12 – 24 months 183 9% 212 10% 356 15% 62 7% 91 10%
>24 months 1,407 70% 1,401 63% 1,520 63% 643 77% 699 77%
2 – 5 years 609 25% 144 17% 230 25%
5 – 10 years 380 16% 202 24% 177 19%
10 – 20 years 361 15% 191 23% 189 21%
more than 20 years 170 7% 106 13% 103 11%
Total 2,012 2,221 2,430 832 908

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Because the 2019-20 survey collected data from individuals, it was possible for the first time to examine how long people had been working (paid) in archaeology. Over 90% of respondents had been working in archaeology for at least two years.

These results are similar to what would be expected when looking at growth in the estimated size of the sector covered in section 1.1 – ~5,300 archaeologists working in 2015 and 6,300 in 2020 is a 16% growth over 5 years and 19% of respondents have been working for 5 years or less. There will have been some retirements so we expect there to be more new entrants than growth in the sector. However, what is not known is how many new entrants quit before working more than five years in the profession. There could be some under-sampling of new entrants in this survey but a different sort of data collection, a tracking survey, would be required to determine this.

Table 2.15.2: Length of paid employment in professional archaeology 2019-20.

Time in archaeology Count %
<24 months or less (2 years) 67 7%
25-60 months (2-5 years) 107 12%
61-120 months (5-10 years) 138 15%
121-240 months (10-20 years) 253 28%
241+ months (20+ years) 334 37%
Total 899

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With both data on length of career and length of working for their current organisation / been self-employed we were able to estimate how many archaeologists have worked for the same organisation throughout their entire career (primary jobs only). There were some discrepancies between between the time they have worked for their current organisations and their time in working in archaeology (some have reported longer periods at their current employer than they have reported as their entire time in archaeology). This could be the result of errors or because some people started working for their organisation before they started working in archaeology. These data are imperfect but do indicate a substantial proportion of archaeologists have only ever worked for/in/as a part of one organisation or for themselves.

Table 2.15.3: Percentage of time worked for current employer out of entire career for professional archaeologists in 2019-20.

Percentage of Career with current organisation/self Count %
0-10% 142 16%
11-20% 101 11%
21-30% 67 7%
31-40% 68 8%
41-50% 75 8%
51-60% 65 7%
61-70% 60 7%
71-80% 66 7%
81-90% 55 6%
91-100% 136 15%
100+% 64 7%
Total 899

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Correlations

Warning: As discussed in the methods, ‘statistically significant results’ means nothing more than these results are worthy of further investigation. The low r-values are not ‘proof’.

There is a correlation between age and length of one's archaeology career (Table 2.15.4). While there are a few archaeologists that have come to archaeology later in life and thus have shorter careers, for the majority, those that are older have had longer careers in the sector. This relationships means that for the most part many of the correlations flagged up in our analysis (see methods section) are in fact related to age:

  • those with less experience being more likely to be bisexual is the result of younger archaeologists being more likely to be bisexual (see page on sexuality);
  • carers likely to have more than a two years of experience is the result of carers most likely to be in their 40s (see page on carers);
  • men more likely to have 20+ years of experience is the result of men dominating the older age groups (see page on genders);
  • archaeologists with less than 20 years of experiencing being more likely to have an emotional disability is because younger archaeologists are more likely to have such a disability (see page on disabilities);
  • archaeologists with less experience are more likely to have higher qualifications because archaeologists over the age of 50 are more likely to have a bachelors degree as their highest qualification (see page on qualifications);
  • archaeologists with less experience are more likely, than those with more experience, to be a non-UK citizen but that is because non-UK citizens make up more of the younger age groups (see page on nationalities).

Table 2.15.4: Relationship between age and time working in archaeology - professional archaeologists in 2019-20. NOTE - several results fell below the threshold for data protection and were removed.

Age Time working in archaeology
<24 months or less 25-60 months 61-120 months 121-240 months 241+ months
Under 30 40 49 25 removed or 0 removed or 0
31-40 15 41 80 119 removed or 0
41-50 removed or 0 10 14 96 104
51-60 8 removed or 0 11 24 147
60+ removed or 0 removed or 0 removed or 0 14 84

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However, not all correlations flagged up were related to age. One area where there was a correlation was with permanent and fixed term contracts. Those with less experience in archaeology were more likely to be on short-term contracts. There was no discernible pattern for those on zero hour contracts. There was also a pattern with length of time with an organisation, however, this is to be expected. Currently, in the UK after two years with an organisation, one gains certain employment rights that permanent staff enjoy and there are limited reasons for employers to have employees on short term contracts after this point as this potentially requires more organisational effort and cost to do so (having to issue new contracts).

Table 2.15.5: Experience and contract type for professional archaeologists in 2019-20. NOTE - a result fell below the threshold for data protection and was removed.

Time in archaeology Contract Type
Pernament Zero hours Fixed Term
Count % Count % Count %
<24 months or less (2 years) 43 64% 6 9% 18 27%
25-60 months (2-5 years) 81 79% removed 0% 22 21%
61-120 months (5-10 years) 112 82% 8 6% 17 12%
121-240 months (10-20 years) 217 89% 11 4% 17 7%
241+ months (20+ years) 280 87% 23 7% 19 6%

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Image Credit

Tour of site by Wessex Archaeology via Flickr. CC BY NC 2.0

Version control and change log

As a digital document we may update parts of this page in the future to account for corrections or the need for clarification. Please use the version when citing:

Version: 1.0

Change log: no changes

CREDITS

Title: Profiling the Profession

2020 Authors: Kenneth Aitchison, Poppy German and Doug Rocks-Macqueen

Published by: Landward Research Ltd

Version Date: 2021

ISBN: 978-0-9572452-8-0

DOI: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.14333387

License: CC BY SA 4.0 for all text and figures. Header images are from different sources check image credits for their specific licensing.

2020 funders: Historic England, with support from Historic Environment Scotland, CIfA and FAME.

Questions about Profiling the Profession: enquiries@landward.eu