Valuing the historic environment: summary

Cadw, on behalf of the Historic Environment Group, commissioned AMION Consulting to provide an assessment of the economic, social and wider value generated by Wales’ historic environment. The study covers organisations that conserve, maintain, manage and provide access to scheduled monuments, listed buildings, conservation areas, historic parks and landscapes, marine heritage, museums and heritage centres.

Overall, the evidence demonstrates that Wales’ historic environment is not only a cultural asset, but a strategic national resource. It supports economic resilience, the visitor economy, community wellbeing, Welsh identity, education, skills, regeneration and climate resilience. The estimates have been prepared on a deliberately prudent basis and are likely to understate the full contribution of the sector.

Economic contribution

The historic environment supports an estimated 17,738 FTE jobs and £738.7 million of GVA in Wales each year, including direct activity, tourism, supply-chain and workforce-spending effects.

Visitor economy

Historic environment assets and accredited museums record over 13.2 million visits each year. Attributable off-site visitor expenditure is estimated at £617.3 million, supporting 10,317 FTE jobs and £355.7 million of GVA. These job and GVA figures are already incorporated into the economic contribution headline summary above.

Social value

Direct engagement, non-use benefits, volunteering, education and employment-related wellbeing generate an estimated £107.1 million of monetised social value each year.

Wider public value

The sector makes important contributions to cultural identity and language, community participation, placemaking, specialist skills, stewardship, environmental sustainability and climate adaptation.

The assessment combines a bottom-up economic impact model, Welsh Government input output multipliers, the Museum Spotlight Survey 2024, organisational data, more than 1,000 contingent valuation survey responses and consultation with over 40 stakeholders. Evidence principally relates to April 2024 to March 2025, with all monetary values reported in 2026/27 prices.

The findings should be regarded as robust lower bound estimates, reflecting the study’s deliberately narrow scope and cautious approach to attribution and double counting. Full details of the methodology, assumptions and limitations are provided in the full report.

The historic environment supports activity through the day-to-day operation of sites and museums, conservation and capital works, education and research, visitor expenditure, Welsh supply chains and spending by supported workers. The largest quantified channel is the visitor economy, but direct organisational activity also provides a substantial base of skilled employment and economic capacity.

Direct organisational activity

Management, visitor services and operations, construction and conservation, and education and research support 4,476 FTE jobs and £167.0 million of GVA each year.

Tourism spillover

After excluding displaced Welsh resident spending and adjusting for the extent to which heritage motivated the trip, attributable off-site expenditure supports 10,317 FTE jobs and £355.7 million of GVA.

Supply chain effects

Purchases of goods and services by heritage organisations and the visitor economy support a further 1,710 FTE jobs and £112.8 million of GVA.

Workforce spending effects

The spending of wages supported by direct, tourism and supply chain activity sustains 1,234 FTE jobs and £103.2 million of GVA.

Distribution of value

Historic environment assets account for around two-thirds of the total economic contribution, while museums support almost 6,000 FTE jobs and £236.8 million of GVA.

Taking all components together, the historic environment in Wales is estimated to support 17,738 net additional jobs and contribute around £740 million in GVA to the Welsh economy each year. Historic environment assets, including activity led by organisations such as Cadw and the National Trust, account for approximately 12,000 jobs and £500 million in GVA, while museums support approximately 6,000 jobs and £236 million in GVA. These totals include direct organisational activity, tourism expenditure, supply chain effects and spending supported by the sector’s workforce, with adjustments made for additionality and leakage outside Wales.

The estimates have been developed on a deliberately prudent basis. The tourism assessment includes only attributable off-site expenditure, excluding admissions and on-site retail income to avoid double counting as well as treating Welsh residents as displaced within Wales. The construction estimates capture activity directly attributable to the organisations included in the study, rather than the full market for work on privately owned historic assets; the wider construction impact could therefore sit between the study’s direct estimate of 730 jobs and the higher-level estimate of up to 1,920 jobs. This construction assessment is captured within the direct organisational activity.

The findings should not be directly compared with the 2010 valuation, as the studies apply different definitions, data sources and methods. The lower headline figure does not indicate that the sector has contracted, but primarily reflects the more cautious attribution and double-counting safeguards adopted in this assessment.

The historic environment creates benefits that are not fully reflected in market transactions. The monetised assessment focuses on direct engagement, the value residents place on continued preservation, volunteering, educational participation and the social benefits of employment. These estimates complement rather than replace the wider qualitative evidence.

Heritage use and non-use

Visitors to four major Cadw castles reported an average willingness to pay of £10.18 per visit. Applied prudently to comparable sites, this generates £7.9 million of use value annually. The continued preservation of Cadw’s castle portfolio generates a further £10.8 million of non-use value, where residents who did not visit the assets still feel enhanced pride in their preservation.

Museums use and non-use

Visits by Welsh residents generate an estimated £17.4 million of wellbeing value, with a further £3.4 million associated with the continued existence of museums for non-visitors.

Volunteering and learning

More than 900,000 volunteering hours generate £9.8 million of wellbeing value annually, while approximately 340,000 educational visits generate a further £2.9 million.

Employment-related benefits

Jobs supported by the sector generate £40.5 million of labour supply benefits and £14.2 million of wellbeing value for people moving into employment.

The monetised social value of the historic environment directly complements the economic value of the sector and demonstrates the significant contribution of the historic environment to day-to-day life in Wales. Overall, the historic environment sector in Wales is estimated to generate £107.1 million of social value each year.

Case study and consultation evidence show that the full value of the sector extends well beyond the monetised results. The main channels of wider value are listed below.

Leadership and strategic alignment

National and local organisations provide sector leadership, co ordinate delivery and contribute to Welsh Government priorities for wellbeing, culture, inclusion, education and sustainable development.

Identity, language and community

Historic places strengthen belonging, pride in place, Welsh cultural identity and language, while providing accessible routes into volunteering and community participation.

Skills and stewardship

Conservation activity protects irreplaceable assets and supports specialist knowledge, traditional building skills, education, research and employability.

Regeneration and placemaking

The reuse and activation of historic buildings and landscapes can improve image, distinctiveness, footfall, local confidence and the viability of towns, villages and rural destinations.

Environmental sustainability

Heritage organisations support biodiversity, adaptive reuse and climate resilience, although the scale of climate risk means that further adaptation and long-term stewardship will be required.

Overall, the study provides a strong and contemporary evidence base for recognising the historic environment as cross-cutting national infrastructure rather than a narrowly defined cultural service. Investment in protection, maintenance and public access produces multiple returns through jobs, tourism, wellbeing, identity, skills, placemaking and environmental resilience.

The findings also demonstrate the importance of sustained stewardship. Wales has a large and diverse asset base, though delayed maintenance, shortages of specialist skills and increasing climate pressures can raise future costs and place irreplaceable assets at risk. The value identified in this study will only continue to be realised where conservation is combined with access, participation, education and people-centred use.

Emerging recommendations

Periodically repeat the valuation

Use a consistent methodology so that economic, social and wider value can be tracked over time and the evidence base remains current.

Develop a common sector data framework

Agree consistent measures for employment, expenditure, visitors, participation, volunteering, education, capital works and geographic reach, reducing reliance on proxies in future studies.

Extend research into harder-to-quantify outcomes

Test alternative wellbeing valuation approaches and examine the effects of heritage density, listed buildings and historic places on life satisfaction and place value.

Benchmark Wales against other nations or regions

A comparative study would help identify relative strengths, evidence gaps and opportunities for the Welsh historic environment.

Use the findings as a shared advocacy tool

Support co-ordinated cross-government and sector engagement by presenting the sector’s contribution in a clear, consistent and up-to-date form.

Embed the evidence in policy and place-based investment

Explore use within policy development and mechanisms including Corporate Joint Committees, local growth and regeneration programmes and other place-based funding decisions.

Translate the findings into a sector roadmap 

Use the Historic Environment Group or other convening arrangements to agree immediate and longer-term priorities following publication.

Report authors: AMION Consulting (supported by Morris Hargreaves McIntyre and BLA Translation)

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

For further information please contact:

Cadw
Welsh Government
Cathays Park
Cardiff
CF10 3NQ

Email: cadw.research@gov.wales 

Social research number: 85/2026
Digital ISBN: 978-1-80853-490-4