2.17 Archaeologists’ Income and Hours Worked

Latest Data: 2020

This page investigates the salaries earned and hours worked by professional archaeologists.

Highlights

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For the first time, income on archaeologists was collected from individuals (see methods), instead of from the organisations that employ them. Hours worked were also collected from respondents. There are several advantages to this method:

• it allowed for adjusting of income by hours work to normalise them and make more accurate comparisons;
• it allowed for the accurate accounting for second incomes;
• it allowed for a more accurate capturing of the actual take home salaries of archaeologists, especially those on fixed term contracts who may not have worked throughout the entire year;
• it allowed for the participation of significantly more self-employed archaeologists which provides a more accurate view of the whole sector, instead of just those employed by organisations (89% of archaeologists).

However, for all of these advantages there are still issues with these data. This survey is likely to be more accurate for individuals with steady incomes, reflecting relatively stable working patterns. For the self-employed many have irregular hours, or who may work on a project-by-project basis – which makes it difficult to accurately report incomes and hours worked. This issue was raised by many self-employed archaeologists in the survey comments. Because of this, the results should be viewed as good but not perfect representations of the income of archaeologists.

Furthermore, a failure in the survey software meant that the question on income satisfaction only recorded a handful of responses so no conclusions should be made about the hours worked and / or levels of income for those with lower levels of both. Over a quarter of respondents in the lowest income bracket were over the age of 60 and many commented that they had retired but continued to work part-time and thus were satisfied making under £10,000 a year. However, some, not in that group, commented they could barely live on their income from archaeology and were leaving the profession soon. Ideally, the next time this survey is run there will be no software malfunction and we will be able to better understand the income conditions of archaeologists. Until then, one should not ascribe any satisfaction or motivations to incomes.

Where respondents’ second job information was collected, that income and hours worked were added together to obtain total hours and income from jobs in archaeology, except for table 2.17.2 (see note). From these data the average income for respondents was calculated – £30,183. When wages are normalised to 37.5 hours (income divided by the average weekly hours they work and then multiplied by 37.5) of work the average is £32,910. The median (half way point, where half the archaeologists earned more, and half, less) was £28,500 and normalised to 37.5 hours was £30,405.

The distribution of the income provides a greater understanding of what archaeologists make; roughly 80% of archaeologists’ income ranges between £20-40,000 (77% for take home and 83% when adjusted to 37.5 hours of work) (Table 2.17.1).

Table 2.17.1: Distribution of annual reported income of archaeologists and income normalised to 37.5 hours of work. Not all respondents gave average hours worked per week so normalised numbers are lower.

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This tight range differs slightly from both the general workforce of the UK and specific sectors, such as construction, which are slightly longer ranges, especially at the higher end. Generally, archaeology does better than the lower end of these sectors but not as well as the higher end (Figure 1.17.2).

Important Note on Table 2.17.2 & 2.17.3: The ONS data comes from Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, which is based on a 1% sample of jobs taken from HM Revenue and Customs’ Pay As You Earn (PAYE) records. This excludes many self-employed individuals and only captures one job at a time that a person might have. To make the archaeologists’ data as comparable as possible we have removed all self-employed wages from the distribution (hence there is a difference between the 50th percentile figure for archaeologists in this table and the median figure in Table 2.17.1). Furthermore, while all other tables combine the income from individuals with multiple jobs into a single data point, this table has separated them out so every job is a data point, not every individual. This is how the ONS collects their data.

Table 2.17.2: Distribution of annual reported income (excluding self-employed) of archaeologists the UK as a whole, construction sector, all service workers and professional, scientific and technical activities. Non-archaeology data from ONS. Warning: ONS 2020 data are provisional and subject to revisions in the future.

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Average and median salaries have been tracked since the first Profiling the Profession report. Before 2020 the data from archaeologists were obtained from employers. The median is ‘ONS’s preferred measure of average earnings as it is less affected by a relatively small number of very high earners and the skewed distribution of earnings. It therefore gives a better indication of typical pay than the mean.’ For almost the last decade archaeologists’ salaries have been above the UK median for all workers.

Table 2.17.3: Average and median of annual reported income (excluding self-employed) of archaeologists and the UK as a whole from 1997-2020. Non-archaeology data from ONS. Warning: ONS 2020 data are provisional and may be subject to revisions in the future.

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Over 80% of archaeologists work more than 31 hours per week. About three quarters work between 36-40 hours.

Table 2.17.4: Distribution of average hours worked per work for all archaeologists (employed and self-employed).

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Correlations

The testing of income versus the other variables collected in the survey (see methods) found multiple correlations.

NOTE: All of the tables in this section include self-employed archaeologists and are compatible with table 2.17.1. They are NOT compatible with 2.17.2 and 2.17.3 which follows the ONS methods and exclude self-employed and count every job as an individual point. These tables are by individuals, so income from multiple jobs are combined for an individual to have one count of their income and hours worked.

There were correlations with both age and experience, especially, when normalising income by hours worked. For age this relationship was strongest for those under the age of 40. For those over the age of 40, there are only slight difference in the distribution of income between the different decades i.e. those in their 40s, 50s or 60s+ (normalised income).

Table 2.17.5: Distribution of income and age for all archaeologists in 2019-20. Certain counts fell below the threshold for data protection and were removed. Cells with 'removed' were either 0 or below the threshold.

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There is an even stronger trend with experience and income, with those with more experience more likely to have higher incomes.

Note: There were not enough respondents with 30+ years of experience to see trends in a separate category so only a 20+ year category is used.

Table 2.17.6: Distribution of income and experience working as a professional for all archaeologists in 2019-20. Certain counts fell below the threshold for data protection and were removed. Cells with 'removed' were either 0 or below the threshold.

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There was a correlation between income and taking sick leave; those with higher incomes are less likely to take sick leave. However, there are also correlations between age and income, and age and sick absences. However, the distribution is different enough to say that incomes relationships between sick absences and age are different. This relationship was stronger for un-adjusted income.

Table 2.17.7: Distribution of income and sick absences for all archaeologists in 2019-20.

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There is also a relationship between income and types of employment contracts, which also has has a relationship with age as outlined on the 2.15 Archaeologists’ Length of Employment & Experience page. Again, this is different enough to not be fully accounted for by age. This mostly excludes self-employed but a small percentage did provide contract information i.e. sole-traders as the only 'employee' of their company.

Table 2.17.8: Distribution of income and employment contract for all archaeologists in 2019-20. Certain counts fell below the threshold for data protection and were removed. Cells with 'removed' were either 0 or below the threshold.

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There is a strong relationships between being a carer and income, especially when normalised, which would indicate some individuals work part-time to be able to under take their carer duties. Most carer duties are related to children.

Table 2.17.9: Distribution of income and carer duties for all archaeologists in 2019-20.

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There is almost no notable differences in income between those that have Master's and a Bachelor's degree. Those with PhDs are more likely to have higher wages but this is due to wages in academia being relatively higher. Academic jobs (where a PhD is almost always required for positions such as lectureships) account for half of those archaeologists earning more than £50,000 and a third of those making £40-49,000 who have PhDs (not adjusted). If the academic positions were to be removed, the distribution of PhDs' income would be essentially the same as those people with other qualifications. For the vast majority of jobs in archaeology - see page on size of the sector - there is no difference in income between the qualifications held. The sample for those with qualifications below degree level was not large enough to see any trends.

By one of the author's estimates, 90% of people obtaining a PhD in Archaeology will never have a permanent academic job, which means 90% of PhDs will see no income return, working in archaeology, from obtaining a PhD. However, there are many other reasons to pursue a PhD and not everyone will be doing so to increase their earning potential.

Table 2.17.10: Distribution of income and qualifications for all archaeologists in 2019-20.

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Disabled/enabled archaeologists, even when normalising for hours work (many do not work 37.5 hours) are more likely to have lower incomes than those that are not disabled/enabled. There was no correlation with age and experience with having a disability so it is unknown what is causing this.

Table 2.17.11: Distribution of income and disabled/enabled status for all archaeologists in 2019-20.

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There was a correlation between archaeologists' childhood family income and their current income - those from the highest category - higher professional and managerial occupations - were more likely to be making over £40,000 now (normalised for hours worked). The sample for those from a long term unemployed background is too small to draw a conclusion from.

Table 2.17.12: Distribution of income and archaeologists household economic background as a child for all archaeologists in 2019-20. Normalised only.

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The final correlation found was between gender and income, with more men than women earning over £40,000. However, more women tend to be younger and more men tend to be older, and there are relationships between age, experience and income. Examining the relationship, controlling for hours worked (normalising to 37.5) and years of experience shows that there are slight variations between experience groups with the highest differences coming in the 20+ years of experience category, with a difference of 7% between the average figures and 11% between the medians (Table 2.17.13). Given the sample size and nature of surveying populations we can not determine if this sampling 'noise' or a trend.

Table 2.17.13: Distribution of income by gender and years of experience for all archaeologists in 2019-20. Normalised hours only. Certain counts fell below the threshold for data protection and were removed. Cells with 'removed' were either 0 or below the threshold.

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Image Credit

Built Heritage Training. By Wessex Archaeology via Flickr CC BY NC 4.0

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: 1.1

Change log:

7th of July 2020 - fixed error on table 13 which was downloading table 12.