Arts leaders spend less time in post as jobs become ‘joyless’

More than 200 performing arts leaders have moved on from their roles in the past six years, with their average length of service reducing during that period, an investigation by Arts Professional has found.

Using data from public announcements about artistic and executive leaders' career movements from 2018 until now, we found 214 reports of sector leaders planning to leave their roles.

The most departures in a single year came in 2018, with 50 moving on, followed by 40 in 2023. In the first six months of 2024, 18 further announcements were recorded.

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While numbers departing since the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis have remained relatively stable, the amount of time spent in post is on a downward trend.

Leaders whose departures were announced in 2018 spent on average (mean)10.82 years in post, with ten individuals having served over 20 years.

For those whose departures were announced in the first six months of this year, the average time in post was 6.5 years. The longest tenure in announcements made so far this year is 13 years.

The figures comprise artistic directors, chief executives, executive directors and CEOs of professional performing arts organisations, including but not limited to producing theatres, opera and dance companies and touring organisations. Duration in post has been rounded to the nearest whole year at the time of announcement.

While reasons for departure are not always made public, where they were, they included moving to a new organisation, retirement, seeking a better work-life balance and going freelance.

Societal and political shifts

The six-year period under analysis starts immediately following Arts Council England's announcement of the National Portfolio for 2018-22, made in June 2017, and includes two further ACE funding rounds announced in April 2021 and November 2022.

It also includes the period in which grants and loans made as part of the Culture Recovery Fund to help organisations survive pandemic closures were announced in November/December 2020 and April 2021.

In addition to the pandemic, the time span examined encompasses significant societal shifts instigated by the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements and political ones too – namely Brexit (January 2020) and the churn in Prime Ministers (four) and Culture Secretaries (eight).

The figures appear to support sector concerns about a recent "exodus of artistic leaders" due to increasing pressure from public funding cuts by arts councils and local authorities as well as rising overhead costs for utilities. Wages have also grown substantially with increasing inflation since the pandemic.

ACE doesn't collect data on the tenure of artistic/executive directors but told Arts Professional that cultural organisations across the country are currently facing "challenging circumstances" and that this is being felt "in particular by leaders of those organisations".

"We will continue to do everything we can to support them, including by making the strongest case possible to the new government advocating about the enormous benefits that investment in culture delivers for communities across England, the economy, and the public life of our country," the spokesperson added.

'Impossible and joyless'

Writer and arts consultant David Micklem said the figures reinforce the view that leading a performing arts organisation has become much harder and less rewarding over the last decade.

He said: "The polycrises of austerity, Brexit, Covid, the cost of living, local authority cuts, Arts Council cuts, the culture wars, difficulties hiring and maintaining staff, the degradation of arts education, poor pay – the list I’m afraid goes on and on – have rendered these senior roles almost impossible and often joyless."

"There are exceptions – especially venues with larger capacities that can generate commercial box office and secondary income – but the challenges facing arts leaders running mid-scale and smaller venues, and touring companies, have become existential."

'Challenging circumstances'

Hilary Carty is Director of Clore Leadership, a sector support organisation within the National Portfolio offering resources specifically tailored for leaders and organisations to develop and strengthen cultural leadership. She says: “Artistic Directors and CEOs are facing acute challenges."

"Financial constraints, eroded trust, new technologies and changing workforce dynamics have added pressure to their core jobs of leading their art forms, organisations and sectors. Against the persistent backdrop of volatility and uncertainty in the UK, it is not surprising that leaders are spending reduced time in these roles."

Inspired by posts on Twitter/X from Battersea Arts Centre's Artistic Director Tarek Iskander about the high turnover of theatre leaders, Clore devised a programme of assemblies, in collaboration with ACE, to identify changing trends in leadership, to instigate collaborative solutions and to foster a more resilient and thriving cultural leadership.

"Creative leaders make a vital contribution to society and approaches that support their longevity as leaders must be a priority for our sector,” Carty said.

'Urgent, needed changes'

Cultural consultant Sherry Dobbin noted that a confluence of social, ethical, political and economic shifts has dramatically altered the landscape in which arts organisations operate in a relatively short space of time.

Of the various issues leaders are contending with, Dobbin said, "Brexit really hit the performing arts, particularly international co-productions with artists and crews not being able to move throughout the EU freely. It impacts budgets and time with visas; it makes the risk of visa-denied cast or crew unappealing to tour to the UK.

"There is social consciousness of who is funding what and how the current philanthropy and sponsorship has to be upended … There are urgent, needed changes, accelerated by social media pressures, to diversify the staffing, leadership and governance.

"New digital engagement platforms were being invented during Covid-lockdowns with no or little existing budgets, as well as the slow recovery to visitor numbers that matched the 3-year or 5-year approved budgets. There are more reporting structures, targets and free programming without proportional funding increases.

"There are pressures to generate new funders or become self-sustaining, but UK trustees are not positioned or trained to be fundraisers as in other countries with large earned or gifted revenue demands. These pressures rewrite the job descriptions … and the salaries have not risen in over 10 years."

'Outdated structures'

Dobbin suggests younger leaders, with more entrepreneurial and less institutional approaches, might find it easier to navigate the current challenges and even thrive and drive new strategies, which may also be impacting the length of time leaders stay post.

"There is a desperate need to communicate, often in a new, collective manner that's more immediate, where the content/mission focus leads the business model. These new models may last five years; or they may develop into new institutional models. But they're not as concerned about creating institutions in the same way [that their predecessors did]; the legacy visions have more variety.

"We need to address the complexity of the real, virtual and hybrid platforms of our leaders, rather than force-fitting them into outdated structures. Leaders aren't leading in a vacuum; they have to deal with all of this, and they need support."

Micklem is similarly hopeful about the future. "I’m an optimist," he said, "and I hope a new government will help inspire a next generation of performing arts leaders equipped with the skills, tenacity and resilience to find the joy in these roles again, to make them feel more human-scale, less relentless, more creative, more joyful again."