The average salary for directors at U.S. galleries is $120,000, while their European peers earn just €80,000 (about $87,000). In the U.S. commercial art world, employee satisfaction with pay dropped 25.7 percent in 2024 compared to 2022. And advanced degrees do not seem to translate into higher salaries. All these findings, and a great deal more, are detailed in a new report from Sophie MacPherson, a recruitment firm focused on the art industry.
The SML Art Market Talent Report (known as the Art Market Salary Report, when it was first released two years ago) aims to present “an expanded, in-depth analysis of the evolving talent landscape within the commercial art market,” the firm said in a statement. The report was developed in connection with ArtTactic and is based on 1,590 responses from commercial art world employers and employees across 40 “geographies.”
The art world is notorious for being opaque, so the report offers some welcome transparency, particularly when it comes to salaries.
Here are some of the report’s key findings:
– Salaries in the U.K. grew between 2022 and 2024, though the report does not specify how much. However, employee satisfaction with that pay fell 19.6 percent.
– In the U.S., earnings dropped (the report also does not say by how much) and employee satisfaction with them fell 25.7 percent. Salaries across Europe rose in 2023, and then stabilized in 2024. Employee satisfaction in regards to pay there was down 19 percent, the smallest decline.
– White professionals had the highest median salaries of any racial group, while Black professionals earned the lowest in both the U.K. £26,000 ($33,600) and the U.S. ($67,000). On average, men earned more than women.
– Higher-education degrees do not necessarily translate to higher earnings, particularly in the U.K. and Europe. Those who hold master’s and Ph.D. degrees “often earn the same as—or even less than—those with bachelor’s degrees,” according to the report.
– Most art-world jobs “remain primarily on site,” with 62.6 percent of survey respondents saying they worked in offices or on location the majority of the time. Unsurprisingly, gallery employees were most likely to work on site, at 82.7 percent.
The report’s authors write that they hope to create “actionable insights” for employers and employees. In a section offering “advice to employers,” they encourage continued adherence to DEI initiatives, despite current pullbacks in the U.S., and say that their findings show “what attracts and retains top talent is competitive compensation, benefits, and supportive and transparent work environments.”
Amid a lot of sobering data, one bright spot is that, by the end of 2024 in the United States, “negative hiring perceptions” declined from 36 percent to 25 percent. We’ll have to wait to the next report to see how those perceptions have responded to recent trade wars and the stock market slide.
