Executive Summary

Latest Data: 2020

Comprehensive Labour Market Intelligence for the archaeological profession in the United Kingdom has now been gathered for the fifth time in the series of Profiling the Profession studies.

This baseline survey used an elaboration on the same fundamental methodology that was previously employed in 1997‐98, 2002‐03, 2007‐08 and 2012-13, and consequently a time‐series dataset has been compiled which allows trends to be identified with increasing confidence. One significant change to methodology used in 2019-20 was to gather data about individual archaeologists characteristics (such as age, gender, ethnicity and also salary, qualifications and other details) from the people in question, rather than from their employers, so making these data more representative.

The census date for Profiling the Profession 2019-20 was March 1st, 2020 – immediately after the UK had left the European Union, but before the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic began to be felt by the sector. The project has been funded by English Heritage through their COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund.

The previous labour market intelligence gathering exercise for the sector (in 2012-13) was undertaken at a point when the cumulative economic changes brought about by the sharp decline in economic activity in the late 2000s had led to years of professional archaeology being a much smaller sector than it had been before the Great Recession. Between 2012-13 and 2019-20, archaeology grew steadily as a sector.

With an overall response rate of 195 from a population of 2017 potential organisational respondents contacted, at a confidence level of 95% this level of response is accurate to +/‐ 6.7%. The individuals survey was an open instrument, and so the number of potential respondents is unknown.

Number of Archaeologists

The estimated numbers of archaeologists working in the UK in 2019-20 was 6,300 (this figure is FTE jobs – these posts are filled by an estimated 7,000 people). This represents a 31% increase on the 2012-13 total of 4,792, and is slightly less than the high-point figure of the workforce of 6,865 in 2007-08.

Age, gender, ethnicity, disability status and country of origin

The average age of a working archaeologist in 2019‐20 was 44; female archaeologists were on average aged 41, and male archaeologists 47. The average age of working archaeologists had increased by two years over the previous seven years.

The survey found that 47% of archaeologists were female and 53% were male, matching the profile of the entire UK workforce. In 2012‐13, the proportions were 46:54.

Archaeology continued to not be an ethnically diverse profession. 97% of working archaeologists are white.

11% of respondents identified that they had a disability, a significant change from previous reports (in 2012-13, 98% of archaeologists were not disabled). This change is likely to reflect the fact that these data were provided by individuals rather than their employers, and so hidden disabilities were being reported.

87% of archaeologists working in the UK in 2019-20 were British nationals, 11% were EU nationals and 2% were from non‐EU Europe and 4% were from elsewhere in the world. This represented a substantial increase in the proportion of archaeologists from the European Union countries (was 3% of working archaeologists in 2012-13).

For the first time, data were also collected on archaeologists’ sexualities, their socio-economic backgrounds and their responsibilities as carers.

Estimated numbers working in each job type

Of 6,300 archaeologists working in the UK in 2019‐20, it is estimated that 4,375 (69%) of these people worked as contractors or consultants, 375 (6%) provided local heritage management, 275 (4%) provided national heritage management advice, 175 (3%) worked in museums or cultural attractions, 250 (4%) worked as public archaeologists and 850 (13%) worked for organisations that provided education and academic research.

Overall, this represented a relative increase in the percentage of archaeologists working in the private sector since the previous survey in 2012-13 and a decline in those working in the public sector.

Geographical differences

More archaeologists worked in the south of England than other areas, but this largely reflects the overall pattern of the UK population distribution. The geographical distribution of archaeologists has not changed significantly over the period of 22 years that the Profiling the Profession series of surveys have been undertaken.

Salaries

On average, archaeologists earned £30,183 per annum. The median archaeological salary was £28,500 (50% of archaeologists earned more than this, 50% earned less).

By comparison, the average for all UK full‐time workers was £29,000 – so, overall, the average archaeologist earned 104% of the UK national average. The UK median salary (all occupations) was £25,780, and so archaeological salaries were, overall, 10% higher than salaries across the entire UK workforce.

In 2012-13 the equivalent figures showed that, at tat time, the average archaeologist’s salary was 85% of the UK average.

Staff qualifications

Archaeologists continue to be highly qualified, and over time the average levels of qualifications continue to rise. In 2019‐20, 23% of archaeologists held a Doctorate or post‐doctoral qualification (in 2012‐13 the equivalent figure was 20%), a total of 70% held a Masters degree or higher (in 2012‐13 the equivalent figure was 47%) and 99% of archaeologists held a Bachelors degree or higher (in 2012‐13, the equivalent figure was 93%).

Share this Research

Image Credit

Photogrammetric Survey – Loch Shiel by Wessex Archaeology via Flickr. CC BY NC

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