Here's How Much Money Museum Employees Really Make

Information technology's the first time the Clan of Fine art Museum Directors has made their enquiry public.

Shelley Paine, objects conservator at the Cleveland Museum of Art inspects the French National Treasure at Cleveland Museum of Art on November 8, 2010 in Cleveland, Ohio. Photo by David Maxwell/Getty Images for Cleveland Museum of Art.
Shelley Paine, objects conservator at the Cleveland Museum of Art inspects the French National Treasure at Cleveland Museum of Art on November 8, 2010 in Cleveland, Ohio. Photo by David Maxwell/Getty Images for Cleveland Museum of Art.

It would be difficult, if non impossible, to observe a museum professional who got into the arts for the coin. Simply even curatorial assistants have to pay rent.

A new survey conducted by the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) provides hard data on the boilerplate salaries for curators, conservators, registrars, and other museum staff members—also as which roles in this notoriously poorly paid field have seen the biggest salary bumps in recent years.

The AAMD teamed upward with the consulting and analytics business firm Stax, Inc., to survey 219 museums in the U.s., Canada, and United mexican states virtually what they pay their employees. (Each response was completed by 1 representative from the museum—unremarkably an Hr coordinator.) The AAMD launched its outset salary survey style dorsum in 1918 and began collecting the data in a more formal mode in 1991, but this marks the offset fourth dimension it has made its report free to the public.

Unsurprisingly, meridian administrative positions are the best compensated: The highest-paying museum gigs are director ($293,988 average annual salary), deputy managing director ($173,572 average salary), and main operating officer ($172,872).

Master curators ($143,412) and chief conservators ($118,271)—ii roles that require either an advanced caste, lengthy grooming, or both—also fall towards the peak of the salary hierarchy. The everyman-paid positions are: security baby-sit ($33,974), education department banana ($37,801), and curatorial assistant ($42,458).

These salaries—particularly for entry-level curators and educators—may not be enough to pay off hefty educatee loans, but they are higher than equivalent positions at many international institutions. Last year, for example, London's Tate posted three jobs for banana curators with salaries starting at £24,360 ($31,535).

Not everyone's income is growing at the aforementioned rate, co-ordinate to the survey. COOs saw the largest average annual increment: 5.v%. The survey'south authors attribute this growth to the increasing complexity of museum operations, which is driving institutions to offer more coin to retain more qualified candidates. (Unlike fine art conservation, for example, operations management is a highly transferable skill: a COO could probable take her talent to some other for-turn a profit establishment for a lot more money.)

The second fastest-growing salaried position? Curator.

Curators saw their salaries rise 4.6% per year, on average, between 2011 and 2016—in part considering museums had rise demand for the position during that time. Merely don't race off and enroll in a principal's degree program simply withal: The number of curators is expected to abound vii% betwixt 2014 and 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is only boilerplate in terms of task growth. "Applicants should expect very strong competition for jobs," the BLS remarks.

For their part, museum directors experienced merely a ane.vi% growth in median bacon between 2015-2016—hardly greater than the rate of inflation. Don't experience likewise sorry for them, though: Directors were also more likely than whatever other employee to receive vehicle and housing allowances.

Beneath, we've cleaved out all the job titles covered in the AAMD report, putting them in society by bacon to give a sense of the museum hierarchy. The numbers represent the average (median) salary across the institutions in the survey. (When titles are cleaved up into As and Bs, such as with "Finance A" and "Finance B," the Equally are the position within a department with more responsibility.)

  • Museum Director: $233,398
  • Chief Operating Officer/Ambassador: $150,100
  • Deputy Manager: $142,994
  • Main Curator/Director of Curatorial Affairs/Curator A: $123,725
  • Director of Development/Development A: $120,000
  • Principal Conservator/Conservator A: $107,832
  • Director of Information Systems/Chief Information Officer: $106,692
  • Director of Finance/Finance A: $103,000
  • Senior Curator/Curator of Special Collections Area/Curator B: $102,500
  • Director, Planned Giving/Institutional Giving: $95,000
  • Manager of External Affairs: $94,500
  • Human Resources Director: $92,830
  • Senior Conservator/ Conservator B: $83,771
  • Curator of Exhibitions/Curator C: $81,017
  • Systems Managing director/Technology Manager/Manager of New Media: $79,000
  • Director of Didactics/Curator of Education/Education A: $77,030
  • Facilities Director/Building Manager/Operations Manager: $75,400
  • Marketing Director: $74,375
  • Director of Finance/Finance B: $73,917
  • Acquaintance Curator/Curator D: $69,340
  • Editor/Director of Publications: $68,688
  • Engineering Manager: $67,009
  • Exhibition Designer: $66,955
  • Head Librarian/ Librarian A: $64,272
  • Associate Conservator/ Conservator C: $61,165
  • Spider web Manager: $60,600
  • Public Relations Officeholder: $60,458
  • Grant Manager/Institutional Giving Managing director/Development B: $60,416
  • Principal of Security: $60,416
  • Lensman: $58,915
  • Banana Curator/Curator Eastward: $58,052
  • Registrar A: $55,973
  • Associate Librarian/Librarian B: $55,703
  • Graphic Designer: $55,620
  • Special Events Manager: $54,368
  • Assistant to Managing director: $53,960
  • Main Preparator/Preparator A: $53,077
  • Museum Shop Manager: $53,000
  • Associate Registrar/Registrar B: $52,755
  • Development Associate/Development C: $52,020
  • Acquaintance Educator/Educator B: $52,000
  • New Media Manager: $l,000
  • Associate Librarian/Librarian C: $49,728
  • Associate Preparator/Preparator B: $45,127
  • Volunteer Coordinator: $43,722
  • Assistant Educator/Educator C: $43,000
  • Assistant Registrar/Registrar C: $41,787
  • Curatorial Assistant: $40,000
  • Membership Assistant: $39,100
  • Education Assistant: $36,025
  • Museum Security Officer/Museum Security Guard: $31,213

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