The Annual Museum Survey 2024 will open on Monday 20 May
The purpose of the Annual Museum Survey 2024
The purpose of the Annual Museum Survey is to gather evidence to help demonstrate the social and economic importance of museums to funders and stakeholders – locally, regionally, and nationally – and to provide museums with data to enable them to benchmark their performance.
What’s in it for museums?
- Advocacy – evidence to make the case for your social and economic value in order to sustain investment
- Performance benchmarking – consistent data to compare your museum’s operational context
- Informing strategy – knowing your operational context will support your business planning
- Fundraising – the data can be used as evidence to support funding applications or to express your value with the public
The process
Registered museums have been invited to participate in the survey by email. The email includes a direct link to an online survey tool called SmartSurvey.
The survey will open on Monday 20 May 2024 and will close on Tuesday 2 July 2024 at 5pm.
We have provided the survey questions offline below to assist you in preparing your return. Please note, the offline surveys will differ depending on whether you are a single–site or a multi-site organisation. The definitions will help to provide added clarity on the terminology used within the survey questions. Please note, the online survey uses logic to apply only relevant questions. Therefore, some of the offline survey questions listed below may not apply and will result in fewer questions and a shorter survey process.
- Annual Museums Survey 2023 – Single site questions PDF format
- Annual Museums Survey 2023 – Single site questions Microsoft Word format
- Annual Museums Survey 2023 – Multi site questions PDF format
- Annual Museums Survey 2023 – Multi site questions Microsoft Word format
- Definitions
If you require any further support, please contact us on [email protected].
Data and privacy statements
Museum Development South West (Bristol City Council) is commissioned by Museum Development England to deliver the Annual Museum Survey 2024 data collection.
As the contractor for the Annual Museum Survey 2024, we operate as the Data Processor for Museum Development England. Survey responses are stored and processed in compliance with the General Data Protection Regulations (2018).
No personal information will be published in publicly available reports or datasets or shared beyond Museum Development England and Arts Council England. As the Data Processor, on behalf of Museum Development England, we supply the data generated through the survey along with the contact details of the individual providing the data survey return to each respective Museum Development provider and Arts Council England. Links to your Museum Development area privacy policies are provided below:
Museum Development South West (Data controller and processor for the South West)
Data sharing and open source data
Reports based on this survey will be published and made available on this webpage and Arts Council England. Data provided via the survey will be analysed and used to produce publicly available reports by Museum Development England and Arts Council England. The data will support sector advocacy, benchmarking, inform Museum Development business planning and sector wide strategic planning.
The dataset will be published as open-source data on Museum Development websites from January 2026 – approximately one year after the reports are published to support further research. The datasets will not include financial information, or any personal information generated by the survey process. The aggregate data set generated by the survey in 2024 will be shared with our main funder, Arts Council England.
