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Heritage sector is concerned about financial outlook but committed to the environment
The Heritage Fund surveyed organisations that manage and support all types of heritage across the UK. Explore what their responses reveal about current attitudes in our sector
Image via Pixabay
The second UK Heritage Pulse survey – which ran from August – September 2022 – was designed in response to what the heritage sector told us was most important. It focused on organisational resilience, recruitment and staffing and environmental sustainability.
From the 223 complete and 24 partial responses to the survey, we learned:
- Heritage organisations are facing major challenges and have told us that the options available feel limited.
Tom Walters, Head of Research, Data and Insight at the Heritage Fund
Organisational resilience
Heritage organisations are confident in the short term, but this drops off when looking further ahead. Increasing costs and the rate of inflation are impacting confidence levels.
- 92% of organisations are very confident their organisations will survive the next three months, but this falls to 61% when considering beyond six months. Only 47% feel they can confidently predict their financial outlook over the next 12 months, a fall of nine percentage points since our last survey.
- The fall in confidence is also making heritage organisations think twice about investing in areas such as maintenance, research and training.
- 45% of organisations are actively implementing or planning measures to deal with the current high level of inflation, but many are unsure how to respond.
