Example for Creative Accounting ACE R&D NLPG
Rationale for Creative Accounting
The starving artist is not a stereotype, but a reality. Freelancers are at a breaking point, pushing more of us to need time off sick through stress, burnout and mental health issues; or leaving the sector altogether to find more financial security in other sectors, or through Universal Credit. The country’s cultural landscape is being reshaped for years to come by the loss of those artists and arts workers who cannot afford to survive in the sector any longer. This is particularly true for those from racialised and other equity-denied communities.
Irregular and unstable incomes are a norm for freelance experience, with precarity further fulled by late payments and the necessity of unpaid labour (Creative and Cultural Freelancers Report 2024). Increasingly shorter and fewer contracts, as the rest of the sector shrinks, compounds this irregularity. After years of austerity policies and pandemic-effect ripples, grants and public investment have fallen by as much as 30% since 2010, but with few options for alternative sources of funding. There is even little sector discussion on how this could be generated, and so individuals are caught in a trap of reliance on ever-reducing resources with the rising living and production costs eroding the value of stagnant or falling income or investment.
Creative UK’s Forging Future Freelancers report (2025) demonstrates the majority of arts freelancers are getting less work post-pandemic, with fewer opportunities adding to this mix of already-decreased resources. The lack of traditional workplace benefits such as pensions, paid leave and employment protections mean that uncertainty and long-term insecurity looms large, and the lack of any safety net means freelancers are very exposed to any financial shocks. AI and automation are removing us further from our perceived need to understand our business finances, with more and more artists and arts workers reliant on outsourced programmes to secure their funding, tell them how to spend it, and report that spend. This will increasingly erode our understanding of money and our agency in how it is channelled to the benefit of communities.
The DACS/CreatE survey of earnings and contracts 2024 highlighted that disabled artists earned a median of £3,750 annually, and non-disabled counterparts earned £12,500 on average - a 40% decrease since 2010. This steep drop in artists’ earnings is unlivable, and at this point, it feels unethical to make work focused on anything else. Our artist and arts worker community is, through finances, being denied access to the arts.
The Money and Mental Health Institute points out that mental health and money problems are intricately linked, with 86% of respondents to a recent survey identifying that their financial situation made their mental health worse. The issue compounds, as 72% of respondents say their mental health problems have made their financial situation worse. The Understanding Society, UK Household Longitudinal Study (started in 2009, but in connection to research conducted since 1991) suggests we are in a period of high insecurity, with levels of “multi-stress” leaving individuals feeling powerless and unwell, resulting in decreased economic productivity and higher reliance on state support and NHS care. Supporting individuals in a way that feels accessible and community-driven is vital to remove barriers that will prevent careers in the arts long-term. After years of public investment and dedication to ensuring better representation for equity-denied communities, this hard work is being washed away by the palpable sense that these are not careers for people without safety nets and financial literacy. If arts practices can ever allude to being representative of the communities they make work with and for, there needs to be a vital intervention now in how a career in the arts is a sustainable long-term ambition, not just a one-off project.
There is a huge access gap preventing investment in accountancy support or accounting software, and we are constantly being asked for support in making budgets and financial resources for neurotypes who have barriers in dealing with high volumes of numerical data or number sequencing. As highlighted in the Creative and Cultural Freelancers Report (2024) over 20% of the creative workforce identify as neurodivergent, higher than the population average, and so a creative, artistic approach to supporting the financial health of our workforce, in the way that we think as creatives, is vital.
Why The Uncultured
Since 2020 we have worked together with a shared focus on making a tangible, practical difference in artists’ and arts workers careers. Whilst maintaining our on-the-ground work with individual freelancers, we have also steered a number of sector-wide initiatives exploring freelancer parity and unpaid labour.
We have recently been undertaking research with UCL School of Creative and Cultural Industries to understand the development needs of freelancers and their barriers to accessing this. Resoundingly, money and finances was the number one topic that both freelancers and employers of freelancers wanted more bespoke training around. We know that limited literacy around cash flow management, attention to payment terms, inability to model different financial scenarios, and shame or confusion around diversification strategies are issues that many freelancers face.
We are nationally renowned for adapting, translating and communicating complex freelancer-related issues in accessible, creative and even joyous formats. As socially-engaged practitioners our individual practices have resided in live art; from avant-garde approaches to traditional choreographic practices, to durational papermaking as collective advocacy.
Our methods are always rooted in our performative artistic practice: unlearning oppressive methodologies of administration, world-building care and productivity, and reimagining forms of participation in the workforce. This critical engagement with the process of being a freelancer results in a multi-discipline approach to engaging with our sector-facing community: from deconstructing methods for environmental responsibility as a Cosmo-style quiz, to exploring freelancer burnout through a board game.
The starving artist is not a stereotype, but a reality. Freelancers are at a breaking point, pushing more of us to need time off sick through stress, burnout and mental health issues; or leaving the sector altogether to find more financial security in other sectors, or through Universal Credit. The country’s cultural landscape is being reshaped for years to come by the loss of those artists and arts workers who cannot afford to survive in the sector any longer. This is particularly true for those from racialised and other equity-denied communities.
Irregular and unstable incomes are a norm for freelance experience, with precarity further fulled by late payments and the necessity of unpaid labour (Creative and Cultural Freelancers Report 2024). Increasingly shorter and fewer contracts, as the rest of the sector shrinks, compounds this irregularity. After years of austerity policies and pandemic-effect ripples, grants and public investment have fallen by as much as 30% since 2010, but with few options for alternative sources of funding. There is even little sector discussion on how this could be generated, and so individuals are caught in a trap of reliance on ever-reducing resources with the rising living and production costs eroding the value of stagnant or falling income or investment.
Creative UK’s Forging Future Freelancers report (2025) demonstrates the majority of arts freelancers are getting less work post-pandemic, with fewer opportunities adding to this mix of already-decreased resources. The lack of traditional workplace benefits such as pensions, paid leave and employment protections mean that uncertainty and long-term insecurity looms large, and the lack of any safety net means freelancers are very exposed to any financial shocks. AI and automation are removing us further from our perceived need to understand our business finances, with more and more artists and arts workers reliant on outsourced programmes to secure their funding, tell them how to spend it, and report that spend. This will increasingly erode our understanding of money and our agency in how it is channelled to the benefit of communities.
The DACS/CreatE survey of earnings and contracts 2024 highlighted that disabled artists earned a median of £3,750 annually, and non-disabled counterparts earned £12,500 on average - a 40% decrease since 2010. This steep drop in artists’ earnings is unlivable, and at this point, it feels unethical to make work focused on anything else. Our artist and arts worker community is, through finances, being denied access to the arts.
The Money and Mental Health Institute points out that mental health and money problems are intricately linked, with 86% of respondents to a recent survey identifying that their financial situation made their mental health worse. The issue compounds, as 72% of respondents say their mental health problems have made their financial situation worse. The Understanding Society, UK Household Longitudinal Study (started in 2009, but in connection to research conducted since 1991) suggests we are in a period of high insecurity, with levels of “multi-stress” leaving individuals feeling powerless and unwell, resulting in decreased economic productivity and higher reliance on state support and NHS care. Supporting individuals in a way that feels accessible and community-driven is vital to remove barriers that will prevent careers in the arts long-term. After years of public investment and dedication to ensuring better representation for equity-denied communities, this hard work is being washed away by the palpable sense that these are not careers for people without safety nets and financial literacy. If arts practices can ever allude to being representative of the communities they make work with and for, there needs to be a vital intervention now in how a career in the arts is a sustainable long-term ambition, not just a one-off project.
There is a huge access gap preventing investment in accountancy support or accounting software, and we are constantly being asked for support in making budgets and financial resources for neurotypes who have barriers in dealing with high volumes of numerical data or number sequencing. As highlighted in the Creative and Cultural Freelancers Report (2024) over 20% of the creative workforce identify as neurodivergent, higher than the population average, and so a creative, artistic approach to supporting the financial health of our workforce, in the way that we think as creatives, is vital.
Why The Uncultured
Since 2020 we have worked together with a shared focus on making a tangible, practical difference in artists’ and arts workers careers. Whilst maintaining our on-the-ground work with individual freelancers, we have also steered a number of sector-wide initiatives exploring freelancer parity and unpaid labour.
We have recently been undertaking research with UCL School of Creative and Cultural Industries to understand the development needs of freelancers and their barriers to accessing this. Resoundingly, money and finances was the number one topic that both freelancers and employers of freelancers wanted more bespoke training around. We know that limited literacy around cash flow management, attention to payment terms, inability to model different financial scenarios, and shame or confusion around diversification strategies are issues that many freelancers face.
We are nationally renowned for adapting, translating and communicating complex freelancer-related issues in accessible, creative and even joyous formats. As socially-engaged practitioners our individual practices have resided in live art; from avant-garde approaches to traditional choreographic practices, to durational papermaking as collective advocacy.
Our methods are always rooted in our performative artistic practice: unlearning oppressive methodologies of administration, world-building care and productivity, and reimagining forms of participation in the workforce. This critical engagement with the process of being a freelancer results in a multi-discipline approach to engaging with our sector-facing community: from deconstructing methods for environmental responsibility as a Cosmo-style quiz, to exploring freelancer burnout through a board game.
Some of our work
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Frazzled Freelancers (2026)
After years of researching and experiencing freelancer precarity and burnout, The Uncultured have stepped out from behind their spreadsheets to design Frazzled Freelancers. This artwork, cleverly disguised as a board game, is a comical (and unfortunately accurate) take on freelance life and all its curveballs. Supported by Bradford Producing Hub and funded by Arts Council England. Launch event in January 2026. |
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PAUSE: A Self-care Support for Producers (2025)
Co-produced by The Uncultured and Producer Gathering, with support from Artsadmin and Marlborough Productions, this resource offers a supportive lens on experiencing burnout through eight commissioned writings from producers, facilitators, and wellbeing specialists. Read or listen here. Contributors: Emma Wee, Evie Muir, Kim Simpson, Lou Platt, Nick Murray, Seyi Osi, The Black Wellbeing Collective and Toni-Dee Paul. Funded by Arts Council England. |
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Producing Liveness in Interesting Times (2020-22)
A resource of 12 texts speaking from, to or about the experience of producing liveness during and since the pandemic. Each examines approaches to working through this time, as a freelancer and an arts worker, and the coping mechanisms we have employed, the ways in which we have pivoted, and the practices we have left behind. Read or listen here. Contributors: Cecilia Wee, Simon Farid, Sally Rose with Producer Gathering, Daisy Hale, Amber Anderson, Cassie Leon with Cocoa Butter Club, Paul Sammut with Book Works, Koko Brown, Tobi Kyeremateng, Sophie Flack with New Wolsey Theatre, Rosalie Schweiker and Salome Wagaine Made with support from Battersea Arts Centre, Theatre Bristol and funded by Arts Council England. "I have never bookmarked/saved something so quickly. What an incredible, generous, thoughtful resource. I’m always so grateful that The Uncultured exist." "Practical, thoughtful & accessible. Just what you’d expect from the brilliant The Uncultured" |