2.2 Contracts of Employment for Archaeologists

Latest Data: 2020 (Updated November 2021, see change log)

This page looks at the contracts of employment that archaeologists have, from two sources of data – information from the employing organisations and, from archaeologists themselves.

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Two sources of data for the contract types for archaeologists have been examined – those provided by employers (includes some self-employed archaeologists) and information from individuals responding to the survey. The overall figures from both datasets were very comparable. Employers reported that approximately 88% of archaeologists work have permanent contracts. In terms of hours worked, 84% work full-time and 16% work part-time. Over time, there has been a steady increase in the percentage of archaeologists holding permanent contracts, from 66% in 1997-98 to 88% in 2019-20 (Figure 2.2.2).

Table 2.2.1: Number of staff by contract type for 2018-19 & 2019-20. Reported by employers.

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A discrepancy in the survey questions meant that employers were not asked about zero-hour/casual contracts, only permanent and fixed-term, while individuals were. This will be addressed in future versions. This higher number of zero-hour contracts reported by individuals was almost double or triple the numbers reported in the State of the Archaeological Market Surveys, which usually found only 1-3% of casual contracts in development-led archaeology. Examining the self-reporting primary area of work for individual respondents found that only 4% (18/441) of those working in Contracting for development-led archaeology reported being on a zero-hour contract, in-line with the past surveys. However, other sub-sectors make significantly more use of zero-hour contracts which is driving up the number: Public Archaeology 20% (10/51), Consultancy 14% (18/128), Academia 10% (8/84), Museums/Visitor attractions 8% (5/59). National Heritage Agencies had almost none (1/106).

Table 2.2.2: Number of staff by contract type, 1997-2020. For individuals in 2019-20 other = zero hours contract

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For almost all of the last 30 years the rate of temporary jobs for the entire UK workforce has hovered between 5-7% (ONS). Archaeology is now approaching the UK average for the percentage of workers that are on temporary contracts. Note – as discussed, due to an oversight, organizations could not give data on casual workers. Organisations may or may not have included those in fixed-term but that is unknown so the 2019-20 numbers should be viewed as rough estimates as they could be off by several percentage points.

While contracts have changed, the number of archaeologists working part-time and full-time has stayed relatively level for over 20 years. Part-time jobs have been less frequent that the overall UK average and the impact this has on the sector is unknown – it is not known if some people are either not entering or not staying in the professional archaeological workforce because they can’t get part-time work or conversely, are people leaving or not joining the profession because they can’t get full-time work? This may be examined in future Profiling the Professions surveys.

Definitions: there is no definition for part-time work in the UK. The ONS data is self-reported. For this report we followed the previous Profiling the Profession conventions which was part-time work was below 30 hours of work per week.

Table 2.2.3: Number of staff by Full-time and Part-time work, 1997-2020. Includes UK data from ONS

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Table 2.2.4: Number of staff by contract types in 2019-20.

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User Requested Data

A request was made to examine part-time and full-time work by gender. As part-time work was calculated from individual responses this was not run through the R code to examine correlations. After the request was put in this was done and it was found that women were more likely to work part-time (Table 2.2.5). This is with the arbitrary definition of <30 hours per week. Looking at the distribution and not arbitrary levels it was found women were more likely to only work 20-30 hours per week than men.

Table 2.2.5: Part-time and full-time working by gender in March 2020 for archaeologists and all UK workers (data from ONS).

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Table 2.2.6: Distribution of Part-time and full-time working by gender for archaeologists in March 2020.

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Image Credit

Final section I – Vicki Cummings, Chris Fowler (2005) Construction and Re-use of Bargrennan chambered cairns, South-West Scotland [data-set]. York: Archaeology Data Service [distributor] https://doi.org/10.5284/1000202. Work is licensed under the ADS Terms of Use and Access.

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:

June 11th 2021 – Tables 2.2.2 & 2.2.3 had data based on respondents that responded to both questions on contract type and full/part-time work. However, not every respondent responded to both questions. Tables 2.2.2. & 2.2.3 have been updated to reflect just respondents to each question which changes the results. Full/part-time work is now more inline with responses from organistions. While contract types now have significantly more zero hour contracts. An archive of version 1.0 page, before these changes, can be seen here: https://web.archive.org/web/20210607093454/https://profilingtheprofession.org.uk/2-2-contracts-of-employment-for-archaeologists/

November 14th 2021 – User requested data on gender and part-time/full-time work was added: Tables 2.2.5 & 2.2.6. In addition, clarifications on definitions of part-time and full-time work was added. The page before these changes can be seen here: https://web.archive.org/web/20210607093454/https://profilingtheprofession.org.uk/2-2-contracts-of-employment-for-archaeologists/