The Datum Report

Occupation 3416 · Associate professional occupations

Arts officers, producers and directors

Half of full-time arts officers, producers and directors in the UK earn more than £45,534 a year, and half earn less.

Arts officers, producers and directors assume creative, financial and organisational responsibilities in the production and direction of television and radio programmes, films, stage presentations, content for other media, and the promotion and exhibition of other creative activities.

How people enter it

Entry can be via academic qualifications, BTEC/SQA awards, diplomas or degrees in sector-relevant subjects. Apprenticeships are available at NVQ levels 2 and 3 in some areas.

What the work involves

• chooses writers, scripts, technical staff and performers, and assumes overall responsibility for completion of project on time and within budget
• directs actors, designers, camera team, sound crew and other production and technical staff to achieve desired effects
• breaks script into scenes and formulates a shooting schedule that will be most economical in terms of time, location and sets
• prepares rehearsal and production schedule for main events, design of sets and costumes, technical rehearsals and dress rehearsals
• ensures necessary equipment, props, performers and technical staff are on set when required
• manages health and safety issues
• selects, contracts, markets and arranges for the presentation and/or distribution of performance, visual and heritage arts

Also called

Broadcast editor · Film editor · Production assistant (broadcasting) · Studio manager · Television producer · Video production assistant

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for arts officers, producers and directors, full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Year-on-year change

The change from each year to the next, in per cent, computed from the figures in the chart above — so the two cannot disagree.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 7 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

Classified alongside this

Actors, entertainers and presenters · Artists · Authors, writers and translators · Dancers and choreographers · Musicians · Photographers, audio-visual and broadcasting equipment operators