Museum Spotlight Survey: 2024 (summary)

The Culture Division of Welsh Government commissioned Emma Chaplin Heritage and Museum Services to undertake the Museum Spotlight Survey 2024. It is a comprehensive survey of museums in Wales that collects data to provide an up-to-date picture of the Welsh museum sector. Findings from the Museum Spotlight Survey help to contribute to estimates of the social and economic impact of museums in Wales. The survey has been undertaken in 2006, 2011, 2015 (reported in Review of museum services, funding and highlights 2015), 2020 (reported in Spotlight on museums 2020) and 2022 (reported in Museum Spotlight Survey: 2022).

The research aims were split into two distinct phases of work. The first phase required the researchers to undertake the Museum Spotlight Survey 2024 and provide support to the museum sector in advance of and during the main stages of fieldwork to maximise the response rate. The first phase also required the researchers to produce a bilingual Government Social Research report and to produce a minimum of five visually engaging themed bilingual factsheets detailing key survey findings so these can be easily accessed by museum leads and sector stakeholders across Wales. The second phase specified the researchers should deliver a maximum of two virtual bilingual workshops in partnership with Welsh Government Culture Division policy colleagues and attend sectoral meetings with museum sector stakeholders to share the main findings.

The research mode is a census survey. Welsh Government provided a list of designated contacts listed for 107 museums participating in the accreditation scheme. The survey subject was museums within the accreditation scheme at the start of the survey period.  The survey list was determined by the client and includes those working towards accreditation, those with full accredited status and those holding provisional accreditation. This gave a total possible sample size of 107 museums. Each contact received a full questionnaire, guidance information and a copy of their response to Spotlight 2022, if one had been submitted. From 107 surveys sent 84 responses were received representing a 79% return rate.

Two virtual bilingual support workshops were delivered during the survey period. Additional support was provided via a dedicated email mailbox. The survey opened 16 June 2025 and was officially closed on 31 July 2025 at midnight. By agreement a limited number of respondents were allowed extensions of up to two weeks and the survey was finally closed on 17 August 2025.

All findings relate to the responses from 84 museums completing the Spotlight 2024 survey.

Museum visitors

In 2024 there were 3,743,804 visits to the museums completing the survey, an increase of 4.3% from the previous year. Considering those museums that responded to both the 2024 and 2022 Spotlight surveys, an assessment of visitor numbers compared to pre-Covid levels was carried out. Data from 2019 visitor figures was used as the pre-Covid baseline data.

In 2024 university museums (123%) and local authority museums (101%) report visitor figures that exceed the pre-Covid baseline. Visitor figure recovery at national museums has reached 76% of pre-Covid baseline and independent museums are now at 80% of pre-Covid figures. Both governance types show year-on-year recovery with increases from 2021 to 2024.

Financial overview

Actual annual museum average operating budgets show modest rises from 2023 to 2024 for independents (5.9%) and local authorities (5%). National museums report a rise in operating budgets of 11%. University museum operating budgets have dropped between 2022 and 2024 by 20%.

Eighty-six per cent (n72) of respondents to Spotlight 2024 received support from their local authority. Of those receiving support, 51% reported that levels of support had stayed the same since the Spotlight 2022 survey was completed, 29% said it had fallen and 19% reported a rise in support.

Thirty-four per cent of Spotlight 2024 respondents report charging for general admission whilst 65% do not. Seventy per cent of museums (n59) in the survey reported charging for specific exhibitions or services beyond general admission. The most common services being charged for are talks, events and formal education visits.

Museum workforce

In 2024 there were 1,623 staff, 999 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) employed in the 84 museums completing the Spotlight survey. Over half (57.4%) of staff are employed in national museums, 22.1% in local authority museums, 11.2% in National Trust sites, 8.3% in independent museums and 1% in university museums.

In 2024, 3,000 volunteers contributed 326,528 hours to the museums responding to the survey.  Of these, 2,709 volunteers support the day-to-day operation of museums, and 291 volunteers hold trustee roles. Trustees oversee the governance and strategic direction of their museums and contribute an average of 229 hours per year.  Volunteers make up over 80% of the workforce in university, independent and National Trust museums.

Collections

Participating museums recorded that they hold 6,782,461 objects in their collections. More than half (51.2%) of Welsh museum stores are already overcrowded. By 2030 most museums (88.9%) will have overcrowded stores.

In 2024, 1,366 objects were reported as leaving museum collections by gift, sale or destruction. This shows the potential for leadership within Wales around collections rationalisation, but that active collections rationalisation is not yet widely embedded in collections management practice in accredited museums across Wales, despite the overcrowded storage issues reported.

Learning

Almost 4,000 (3,994) schools and formal learning organisations engaged with museums in Wales in 2024.

Welsh museums provided approximately 7,248 face to face formal learning sessions to 223,554 participants in 2024. National museums provided formal learning sessions to more than 150,000 participants. Independent and local authority museums offered more than 2,000 activities to more than 69,000 participants.

Museums responding to Spotlight provided approximately 4,899 digital formal learning sessions to 11,767 participants in 2024. National museums provided formal learning sessions to 8,781 participants online. University museums offered more than 141 activities to 1,446 participants.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

There is a wide range of targeted provision across survey respondents for audiences with protected characteristics. Events, exhibitions, and activities focusing on age (young and older people), Welsh speakers and people living with dementia are most widespread. Areas which are less consistently targeted in programming include Gypsy Roma communities, pregnancy and maternity, marriage and gender reassignment.

Whilst many museums report activity to develop a plan or include work in wider museum planning documents, the data suggests a focus would be needed on independent and local authority museums to develop equality, diversity and inclusion activities and action plans that can demonstrate a consistent program of implementation.

Environmental sustainability

Museums were asked to report on carbon calculators used and their results. Only three respondents were able to identify the total tonnes of carbon emissions from their activities.

Partnerships

Seventy-one per cent of non-national museums have used services provided by Amgueddfa Cymru-Museum Wales, with half of those having used more than one service. Object loan, conservation advice and collections advice are the most frequently used services. Over 75% of local authority museums and 67% of independent museums have used the services with many using multiple services.

Report author: Emma Chaplin, Jane Henderson, Phil Parkes and Esther Roberts

Views expressed in this report are those of the researchers and not necessarily those of the Welsh Government.

For further information please contact:

Culture Division
Welsh Government
Cathays Park
Cardiff
CF10 3NQ

Email: culture@gov.wales

Social research number: 21/2026
Digital ISBN: 978-1-83715-963-5