Employment, Volunteering, Education and Training

Local authority employment

Historic Environment employment in local authorities continues to decline

• The 2023 survey of local authorities demonstrates an estimated 807 conservation area and archaeology employees in 2023, an overall 1.5% increase between 2020 and 2023. However, between 2022 and 2023, there has been a decrease of 16 employees
• Previous surveys show that between 2006 and 2018, the historic environment staffing in Local Authorities declined dramatically by 35%. Due to methodology changes, it is not possible to compare data from 2020 onwards with previous years

Figure EMP 2.1a – Total Historic Environment Staff in England, 2020-2023 and 2006-2018

Figure note: Click the tabs to switch between the different time periods.

Source: Local Authority Staffing Survey, 2023

Figure EMP 2.1b – Regional changes to Historic Environment staff numbers, 2020-2023 and 2006-2018

Figure note: Click on the tabs to switch between the different time periods. If you click the legend, you can filter by region.

Source: Local Authority Staffing Survey, 2023

Heritage volunteering

• According to the CLS survey, 5% of survey respondents had participated in formal or informal volunteering for the heritage sector in 2021/22
• In 2021/22, 16% of respondents (approximately 7 million people in England) took part in formal volunteering at least once a month in the past 12 months, similar to 2020/21 (17%). These participation rates are the lowest recorded since data collection started on the Community Life Survey

Figure EMP 2.2a – Different genders and ages within the volunteer pool (%) between 2021/22

Figure note: No updates for 22/23.

Source: Community Life Survey

Figure 2.2b  – Distribution of heritage sector volunteers by region (%), 2021/22

Figure note: No updates for 2022/23.

Source: Community Life Survey

Volunteering in national heritage organisations and events

The heritage sector is heavily dependent on the contribution made by volunteers as demonstrated by the volunteering information shared from the National Trust and the English Heritage Trust each year.

Since 2014, reports are available on the thousands of local volunteers of Heritage Open Days, England's largest community-led festival of history and culture held every year in September.

Figure EMP 2.3 – Losses and gains in volunteer numbers (%) for 3 major organisations, 2018/19 to 2022/23

Source: National Trust, English Heritage, Heritage Open Days

• Between 2018/19 and 2022/23, the number of volunteers with the National Trust and Heritage Open Days declined by 20% and 11% respectively. Some of this is expected due to the impact of COVID-19 and resulting public health concerns
• Evidence from the English Heritage Trust, on the other hand, demonstrates an increasing volunteer trend, with volunteer numbers increasing by 60% since 2018/19

Number of students (higher education, GCSE/A level)

Heritage Counts collates data on the number of students who are undertaking studies related to the historic environment. These figures can be used to assess the potential future workforce for the historic environment.

Figure EMP 2.4a - Increases and decreases of numbers (%) of students studying historic environment subjects, 2023

Figure EMP 2.4b –  Student numbers related to topics affiliated to the Historic Environment shown as a time series (%), 2010-2023

Source: Department of Education

• In 2023, 45% of pupils at the end of Key Stage 4 attempted a history GCSE, compared to 32% in 2008
• The number of students sitting History A Level has decreased, as a proportion of all A level students, from 17.6% in 2019 to 15% in 2023
• On the other hand, the proportion of higher education students studying topics related to the historic environment has declined slightly, from 5.2% of all students in 2008 to 4.1% in 2022

Dataset