Annual Museum Survey 2023 – South West Reporting

South West Annual Museum Survey 2023 

The Annual Museum Survey provides insights into the sector’s health as well as the challenges and opportunities it is facing. By benchmarking data generated every year, it has been possible to spotlight past and current trends such as the impact of the pandemic on volunteering and finances. In 2023, we tell a story of the (post-) pandemic legacy as well as of increasing pressures on the sector due to the cost-of-living and energy crisis. 

Each year we launched a survey in the South West, asking museums within the Accreditation scheme to provide core data on:

• Workforce
• Finance 
• Audiences
• Insights related to governance type and visitor size of museum

This data helped to prove the social and economic value of museums across the South West, both locally and regionally. It also helped museums to benchmark their work.

By encouraging museums and heritage organisations to adopt a simple and uniform way of reporting their headline operational data, we collated a dataset that enabled museums to compare and benchmark themselves anonymously and confidentially to others in the museum sector.

This survey allowed us to understand the impact the museum and heritage sector in the South West and to advocate to funding bodies and government to sustain investment in the sector.

Let us know how you use AMS 2023 data to benchmark and advocate for your museum, or, if you want support to use AMS data, contact us at [email protected]. 

Having trouble viewing the interactive report? Contact us at [email protected] to access the report in an alternative format.

For national results, please read the Annual Museum Survey 2022 national report.