The West Midlands Cultural Workforce
By Dr Mark Taylor, University of Sheffield
What is this document?
This document uses Census 2021 data to provide an overview of the West Midlands cultural workforce. This regional overview has been undertaken to support the development of a workforce strategy for the cultural sector. This document uses data from the 2021 Census to understand the population of the West Midlands and the current cultural workforce. This document summarises what is currently available from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Additional datasets are available to be commissioned from ONS that go into greater levels of detail; and may be more specific to either place or specific art form requirements. For more information and support with this please email info@culturecentral.co.uk
This report is accompanied by a spreadsheet which you can find here; this includes all the data that are used to build the figures.
About the Workforce Strategy
Co-created by over 125 leaders from the region’s cultural sector, Collectively Strategising Culture outlines our priorities and ambitions as a sector in the West Midlands. This plan has been designed to create a shared sense of direction, purpose and responsibility to Culture Central and our stakeholders. One element of this strategy is:
Plan 3: A skilled, resilient and sustainable cultural sector
• We will have a strong cross sector network to build skills, resilience and investment
• We will have collaborative approaches to sustainability and environmental responsibility
• We will champion innovation by allowing flexibility and failure
To deliver this, we are working with the sector and partners, to develop a regional workforce strategy to understand and map the region’s workforce and design a strategy to build and develop a workforce for the future, prioritising equity, skills and resilience.
The strategy will be co-designed and co-owned with key stakeholders in the sector. Taking into account a wide range of contexts and experiences beyond formal employment, in particular freelancing. Be data-informed, for instance to interpret and utilise national datasets that highlight skills shortages on the one hand and under- and unemployment on the other; and will prioritise equality, diversity and inclusion to reflect the diverse and vibrant demographics of the West Midlands.
This technical paper provides an overview and is intended to show what data is available for the region. We anticipate that this will be used to further explore and understand the cultural sector in the region, informed by local knowledge. For further support with the data, or to explore what might be available to use in your setting, please contact info@culturecentral.co.uk
Dr Mark Taylor presented his research findings from the report at the WMCRU session. Watch the recording here.