SAU Membership Survey Report 2023
A web survey was distributed directly to SAU members with an invitation to complete the online survey between 7th November and 10th December 2023.
The SAU Membership Survey 2023
SAU has undertaken several member surveys in the past, and we wished to repeat this process in 2023 with revised questions. The purpose of the member survey was to gather enough information to enable us to build a comprehensive picture of the issues, concerns and patterns of artist's working lives and to feed that into future campaigns.
426 SAU members completed the independently conducted anonymous survey, providing a profile of the SAU membership and a snapshot of the issues and concerns currently facing the visual and applied arts sector in Scotland.
Key findings of this Survey
- 78% of artists are self-employed and 47% are full-time practitioners.
- 59% earn less that £9,000 per year and only 11% earn more than £20,000 per year.
- 33% are disabled.
- 25% are neurodivergent.
- 40% have informal caring responsibilities.
- 25% are struggling to meet their living costs.
- 64% feel concerned about retirement provision.
- 42% have experienced discrimination iin their art sector workplace.
- 45% have experienced contractual issues, often from lack of contracts.
- 33% are never paid according to SAU recommended payment guidelines.
- Only 35% are confident they will be able to pay their studio rent over the next year.
- 78% say that Brexit has had a negative impact on their visual and applied arts practice.
You can download a copy of the full survey findings here.
We would like to give a big THANK YOU to all of our members who gave up their time to complete the survey. We really appreciate the involvement of everyone who took part.
The survey was undertaken by Independent Researcher Ruth Stevenson, of Ruthless Research. Ruth was commissioned to design, manage and analyse the survey. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Ruth for all of her work in this important survey.