In the UK today, students who graduate with arts degrees are more likely to end up working in “retail, catering, waiting and bar staff” than they are in the arts sector.¹

Judged on the numbers, it would appear that the UK’s art schools are more effective at producing waiters and shop assistants than they are professional artists.

Perhaps it’s precisely the things those art schools are teaching that are preventing their students from becoming professional artists?

Let’s elaborate with an example.

I want you to imagine that you’re a baker. You’re a young, ambitious baker, and you’ve always dreamed of having your biscuits stocked in every supermarket in the land.

What would you do, to turn this vision into reality?

You’d probably start by identifying your target market. Who’s buying biscuits, and – more importantly – why do they buy them? What are they looking for, in a biscuit?

Then you’d most likely look at your competitors. What range of products do they produce? What kinds of biscuits are already selling well?

Then and only then, once you’d conducted this research, would you even begin to think about developing your own product – for your product would be developed on the basis of this research.

Can you produce a better biscuit than your competition? Or will you try to undercut them on price?

Of course, you’d need to focus group the biscuits during the development process. You’d need the public to taste them, and tell you what they think – otherwise you’d run a real risk of developing a product that you found appealing, but which nobody else wanted.

Once you had a biscuit that went down well with your target customers, you’d approach supermarkets with samples of your product.

If the supermarkets liked the biscuits, and thought they’d sell well, they’d sign pre-orders. Then, you’d go to the bank and say, “I have pre-orders signed for 15,000 units. I’d like to borrow the money to actually produce the biscuits now, please.”

The bank would lend you the money. You’d fulfil the orders. And you’d be in business. For that is how business works.

What’s striking about this entire process, for someone who works in the creative arts, is that it’s almost the exact opposite of the approach that artists take when producing artwork. It’s the opposite of the approach that they’re taught to take by art schools.

Instead of beginning with market research – to clearly identify who buys artwork, what they’re buying, and why – art students are instead taught to develop a personal “artistic practice” based on their own individual taste or, even worse, their own feelings, identity or personal politics.

In other words, where successful product development begins with the needs of the buyer, artists are instead taught to begin by focusing on themselves.

Unsurprisingly, they then struggle to sell any work.

According to Arts Council England, the average amount of money that artists in the UK earn from their art practice is just £6000 per year. Two thirds of artists earn less than £5000 per year.²

Only 7% of artists earn over £20,000 per year from their practice.³

For comparison, in 2023, the UK’s median annual salary was £37,000.⁴

Just 3% of artists in the UK state that their practice provides them with enough income to live comfortably.⁵

But starting with the artist’s personal tastes instead of the needs of the target customer isn’t the only part of the “personal art practice” model that’s backwards from a business perspective.

Where any other manufacturer would take pre-orders from stockists before launching off and producing anything – often then financing the production with a bank loan – it’s common practice for artists to rent studio spaces and make large quantities of artwork out of their own finances, without having the slightest clue who’ll actually buy the work.

68% of UK artists take on additional jobs in order to support their practice, fitting their art-making as best they can around these other commitments.⁶

38% are supported by their partner’s income, while an additional 23% rely on financial support from family and friends.⁷

Every year, in the United Kingdom, approximately 65,000 students enrol to study creative arts subjects at university.⁸ Upon graduating and entering the workforce, they have the lowest entry level salaries of any degree subject.⁹ Fine Art graduates specifically have the fourth lowest salaries out of all graduates after 5 years.¹⁰

Incredibly, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, those who graduate with degrees in the creative arts actually earn less money than those who choose not to go to university at all.¹¹

Looking at the matter with a clear and sober eye, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that it’s precisely the things being taught at art schools that are the problem. That universities in this country are taking the brightest and best young minds – driven, talented, creative people – and teaching them to approach art-making in a way that’s so backwards and wrongheaded that they are, in effect, condemning them to a lifetime of poverty.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The global art market is valued at $65 billion. The UK art market is the third largest in the world, after the US and China, and is valued at $10.9 billion.¹²

There is plenty of demand for art. But if we want to change the bleak, impoverished circumstances under which the UK’s artists currently live, we need to move away from the anachronistic concept of the “personal practice” and towards an entirely new, actively commercial model.

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References

1. Prospects Luminate (2023). What Do Graduates Do? Insights and Analysis from the UK’s Largest Higher Education Survey. https://luminate.prospects.ac.uk/what-do-creative-arts-graduates-do (retrieved 17^th March 2024). ↩︎
2. TBR (2018). Livelihoods of Visual Artists – Summary Report. Arts Council England. https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/livelihoods-visual-artists-report (retrieved 17^th March 2024). ↩︎
3. Ibid. ↩︎
4. Office for National Statistics (2023). Employee Earnings in the UK: 2023. https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/annualsurveyofhoursandearnings/2023 (retrieved 17^th March 2024). ↩︎
5. TBR (2018) ↩︎
6. Ibid. ↩︎
7. Ibid. ↩︎
8. Oxford Learning College (2022). The UK Degrees With The Best Earning Potential. https://www.oxfordcollege.ac/news/the-uk-degrees-with-the-best-earning-potential/ (retrieved 17^th March 2024). ↩︎
9. Ibid. ↩︎
10. Adzuna (2023). The Top 10 Most Valuable Degrees. https://www.adzuna.co.uk/blog/the-top-10-most-valuable-degrees/ (retrieved 17th March 2024). ↩︎
11. Britton, Jack et al. (2020). The Impact of Undergraduate Degrees on Lifetime Earnings. Institute for Fiscal Studies. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/undergraduate-degrees-lifetime-labour-market-returns (retrieved 17^th March 2024). ↩︎
12. McAndrew, Clare (2024). The Art Market 2024. Art Basel and UBS. https://theartmarket.artbasel.com/download/The-Art-Basel-and-UBS-Art-Market-Report-2024.pdf (retrieved 24^th September 2024). ↩︎