An article of mine was recently published in The Archaeologists, which is open access but with a 1 year rolling wall were you have to be a member of the IfA to see it. The reason I published there was because it was open access but one year is a long time to wait for some, unless you are a member of the IfA (roughly 2800 of the 6800 archaeologists in the UK). As such, I am putting up my pre-submission paper hear so that it will be green open access during that year embargo. I will also put up some of the historical data sources that I cite in case anyone wants to look at them (bottom of the page). Here is the html version and downloadable PDF is here- Jobs in British Archaeology 2008 2011.
Jobs in British Archaeology 2008-2011
Between 1995 and 2008, an annual article called Jobs in British Archaeology (Aitchison & Anderson 1995; Tuner 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999; Malcolm 2000, 2001; Drummond-Murray 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008) was published in The Archaeologist (previous named The Field Archaeologist). These articles presented information on pay conditions in British Archaeology using data collected from the advertised pay rate of job postings on the IfA’s Jobs Information Service Bulletin (JIS) and in some of the year’s job posts on the British Archaeology Jobs Resource (BAJR) website. These articles provided continual information to archaeologists on salary conditions between the larger Profiling the Profession publications, a census of British archaeologists taken every five years.
This article is an attempt to restart this tradition of yearly insights into UK archaeology jobs previously undertaken by Kenneth Aitchison, Seona Anderson, Robin Turner, Gordon Malcolm, and James Drummond-Murray. In a unusually occurrence for a Jobs in British Archaeology article this particular article will be covering several years, to fill in from 2008 till 2011, instead of customary single year.
The data was gathered from both the IfA JIS and BAJR covering the dates from April 1st 2008 to March 31st 2011. In 2008 the period covered by the Jobs in British Archaeology articles switched from a calendar year to a fiscal year. Each job was treated as a single data point and the advertised pay rate counted. If the job posting did not specify the number of jobs being advertise it was counted as a single job. Where a salary range was given, the middle point was used for analysis (keeping with past publications). Hourly, daily or weekly wages were converted into annual salary equivalents. Due to the larger number of postings for conservators this position was split off from specialists into its own category for the 2008-2011 data. To understand how each position is defined please see previous issues of Jobs in British Archaeology.
As can be imagined, the ‘Great Recession’ has taken a toll both on the number of jobs being advertised and in terms of the average pay. Loss of pay can be seen most dramatically in the top level positions such as Senior CRM/SMR and Consultants. These same positions did see above average rises in pay in the few years leading up to the recession and this loss of pay situates these positions closer in line with their historical averages. An interesting occurrence was that wages continued to rise into the recession and did not fall till last year indicating some lagging in pay conditions compare to the general economy. It will be interest to see if these declining pay rates continue into 2011-12 or beyond.
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
IfA student member
University of Edinburgh
Researcher, Landward Research Ltd.
Works Cited
Aitchison, K. R. & Anderson S. M. 1995, Jobs in British
Archaeology The Field Archaeologist No 22 Spring.
Tuner, R. 1996, Jobs in British Archaeology
The Field Archaeologist No 25 Spring
Tuner, R. 1997, Jobs in British Archaeology
The Archaeologist No 29 Summer
Tuner, R. 1998, Jobs in British Archaeology
The Archaeologist No 31 Spring
Tuner, R. 1999, Jobs in British Archaeology
The Archaeologist No 34 Spring
Malcolm, G. 2000, Jobs in British Archaeology
The Archaeologist No 37 Spring
Malcolm, G. 2001, Jobs in British Archaeology
The Archaeologist No 40 Spring
Drummond-Murray, J. 2002, Jobs in British Archaeology
The Archaeologist No 43 Winter
Drummond-Murray, J. 2003, Jobs in British Archaeology
The Archaeologist No 47 Winter
Drummond-Murray, J. 2004, Jobs in British Archaeology
The Archaeologist No 51 Winter
Drummond-Murray, J. 2005, Jobs in British Archaeology
The Archaeologist No 56 Spring
Drummond-Murray, J. 2006, Jobs in British Archaeology
The Archaeologist No 59 Spring
Drummond-Murray, J. 2007, Jobs in British Archaeology
The Archaeologist No 66 Winter
Drummond-Murray, J. 2008, Jobs in British Archaeology
The Archaeologist No 68 Summer
Doug's Archaeology 
Christopher Dore
January 4, 2012
Doug writes “An interesting occurrence was that wages continued to rise into the recession and did not fall till last year indicating some lagging in pay conditions compare to the general economy. It will be interest to see if these declining pay rates continue into 2011-12 or beyond.” This is a well known pattern in the environmental consulting industry (of which archaeology is a part). Data reported by Environmental Business Journal historically shows an 18 month lag in the environmental industry as compared to the general economy…both on the up side and the down side. Presumably, this is due to project capitalization. When the economy turns down, capital isn’t available but large infrastructure projects that have been capitalized and are in progress continue through to their completion (18 months). When the economy turns up, capital becomes available for large infrastructure projects but it takes about 18 months to secure the funding and get the projects underway.
Interestingly, though, data show that at the bottom of the “great recession” the environmental industry did not go negative and continued to grow (although just barely). However, most firms that do only cultural resource consulting reported negative growth. What does this tell us? My read of these data are that market share has, and continues, to be taken away from cultural only-firms by multidisciplinary environmental consulting firms. While this is a different topic, it is a related topic. How much bounce back are we seeing in archaeological employment and/or the wages of archaeologists during economic recovery? I think we are seeing some but I also do believe that the amount of archaeological work during the “great recession” continued to grow–just that this growth was in large engineering and multidisciplinary environmental firms and not among the cultural resource-only firms. So, as with most topics related to employment, wages, and the economy for archaeologists, this topic is more murky and complex that we would like.