14.04.2025: UK Music is running its annual Creators’ Survey aimed at UK-based artists, musicians, DJs, vocalists, songwriters, composers, producers, and engineers. Here, our Director of Research and Analysis Andy Edwards explains why he is immensely grateful to all music creators who take the time to participate in the survey each year and outlines why this work is so important and why your help matters. He also gives some suggestions for completing the survey.
If you complete this survey, thank you. You are helping us gain crucial insights into the working lives and careers of music creators in the UK – the opportunities and the challenges – and this helps support the work we do. You can complete the survey here.
Music creators collectively are the biggest sector of the music industry, both in terms of employment and Gross Value Added (GVA) to the UK economy. What is difficult, from an insight perspective, is gathering relevant data that represents music creators in all their varied roles, whether you are an artist, musician, DJ, vocalist, songwriter, composer, producer, or engineer, and, of course, those of you who wear more than one hat.
Without your help this project would not be possible, and it enables key publications such as our 2025 economic report, which you can read here. It features sections on areas such as the Artist Development Cycle and Export Barriers, as well as the music creator contribution to the GVA, Exports, and Employment figures.
UK Music’s economic work is well established, and widely respected by government, and the media. It helps us stand up for the issues that are important to you.
The questions are fairly detailed, and we recommend you take a look in advance and prepare your numbers before completing the survey. The key data that is worth preparing is:
– Total income for 2025
– How much was earned in the UK, the EU, and the rest of the world.
– How your income breaks down by source. To assist you, we first ask what are your sources of income (e.g. PRS, PPL, label, publisher, live performance, merchandise, etc), and in the next question, we ask for your earnings for each source.
– We also need to understand your costs, such as paying producers, session musicians, studios, promotion, and so on.
– It is perfectly OK to provide approximate figures, provided they broadly reflect the pattern of your earnings. Hopefully, this will save you some time.
For example, if your actual earnings are £31,748.00, it is fine to round this up to £32,000 to make the numbers easier for you to input.
When it comes to sources of income, make sure you only select the sources from which you earn money. The example below shows how a composer might respond. A touring musician will have a different pattern of income and will select different sources.
In this example, the composer has selected PRS, publishing, commission fees, and music tuition (which they may do on the side). This means when it comes to inputting their earnings, the person only needs to report on the sources they have selected.
The composer earned most of their income from commissions, topped up by tuition and royalty income from their music publisher and PRS. The numbers must add up to the total you have given, but as long as the spread of income you report is a good approximation, that is fine.
Elsewhere in the survey, we ask about your experiences of Brexit, if this is relevant to you, and your thoughts on AI (Artificial Intelligence). There is also an open-ended question so you can share broader thoughts, if you wish.
Please be assured that we appreciate how sensitive this information is, and we adhere to strict confidentiality and GDPR practices. All the information about how your data is handled can be found at the top of the survey, but if you have any concerns, please let us know.
We very much appreciate the time and effort you all put into completing the survey every year. As a thank you, you have the option to enter a prize draw for some £100 Amazon vouchers to five winners.