ABSTRACT
This paper reports the findings of a survey of UK Authors’ Earnings and Contracts conducted in 2022 by CREATe (the UK Copyright and Creative Economy Research Centre based at the University of Glasgow). The survey builds on previous, longitudinal and comparative research enabling us to track trends in earnings and working conditions over 16 years.
This report is situated amidst an arguably global trend towards the de-valuing of creative labour. The survey also took place in the aftermath of two hugely disruptive events for UK authors: the Covid-19 pandemic (the first UK lockdown started on 23 March 2020), and Brexit (the transition period ended on 1 January 2021). We find that, despite being sometimes heralded as great equalisers, these events had significant and disproportionate effects on certain groups of authors. While some of their effects may have not fully materialised, neither Covid-19 nor Brexit appear to have fundamentally changed the creative labour markets; rather, they have accelerated existing trends …
Thomas, Amy and Battisti, Michele and Kretschmer, Martin, UK Authors’ Earnings and Contracts 2022: A Survey of 60,000 Writers (December 6, 2022), CREATe Centre, University of Glasgow (2022).
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