Live music employment is measured in several different ways. UK industry totals include live performance alongside other music activities, while touring studies estimate full-time-equivalent (FTE) jobs. In the United States, occupational counts cover musicians and singers across live, recording, education, church, and other work. Together, these measures show both the scale of the workforce and the limits of treating “live music jobs” as one standardized category.
Contents
- UK music-industry employment context
- UK live music and touring FTE jobs
- U.S. musicians and singers: employment and outlook
- U.S. music occupations and wages
- The longer U.S. event-promoter trend
- How to interpret these employment statistics
UK music-industry employment context
The This Is Music 2024 report counted 216,000 people in the UK core music industry in 2023, compared with 210,000 in 2022. The report describes a 3% increase from 2022 to 2023. This is a broad music-industry measure: live performance is included, but the total is not a live-music-only employment count.
The same report, citing Office for National Statistics data, put self-employment at 70% among people working in music, performing, and visual arts. The comparable self-employment share for the UK working population was 15%. These figures describe the wider creative workforce cited by the report, so they should not be read as a direct estimate of self-employment among live musicians alone.
The headline UK totals are useful for context because they show how large the music workforce is before narrowing the lens to touring. They also show why employment statistics can differ sharply depending on whether the unit is a person, a job, or an FTE position, and whether the measure covers the entire music industry or a particular live activity.
UK live music and touring FTE jobs
The GOV.UK study, “The economic benefits of touring and impact of EU exit” reports estimated economic impacts in FTE jobs. Its direct live-music estimate rose from 16 FTE jobs in the UK in 2022 to 283 in 2023 and 389 in 2024. Across 2022–2024, the direct total was 689 FTE jobs.
The study also reports total impacts, including indirect and induced effects. Those total estimates were 48 FTE jobs in 2022, 844 in 2023, and 1,159 in 2024, for 2,052 FTE jobs across the three years. Direct and total figures are different scopes: the total includes effects beyond the activity directly counted in the touring analysis.
UK touring employment estimates
| Measure | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2022–2024 total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direct live-music economic activity, FTE jobs | 16 | 283 | 389 | 689 |
| Total live-music economic impact, FTE jobs | 48 | 844 | 1,159 | 2,052 |
| Direct stadium-and-arena music tours, FTE jobs | 8 | 113 | 196 | 317 |
Stadium-and-arena music tours formed a narrower part of the direct estimate. They supported 8 FTE jobs in 2022, 113 in 2023, and 196 in 2024, with 317 FTE jobs across 2022–2024. These are estimated jobs expressed as full-time equivalents, not a headcount of every person who worked a tour or venue shift.
The FTE approach is especially important for live music, where work may be seasonal, project-based, part-time, or spread across multiple productions. A person working several short engagements may contribute less than one FTE, while the reported FTE total summarizes labor input in a common unit. The GOV.UK figures therefore complement, rather than replace, the broader UK core-industry employment count.
U.S. musicians and singers: employment and outlook
The BLS Musicians and Singers: Occupational Outlook Handbook reports about 170,400 U.S. musicians-and-singers jobs in 2025. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects about 170,900 jobs in 2035, a 0% employment change from 2025 to 2035 and about 600 additional jobs over that period. The 2035 figure is a forecast, not an observed 2026 value.
Even with little projected net growth, BLS projects about 17,400 openings for musicians and singers each year on average from 2025 to 2035. Openings are not the same as net new jobs; they can reflect the need to replace workers who leave an occupation or the labor force as well as changes in employment levels.
The 2025 occupational profile also shows why this category is broader than live performance. Self-employed workers accounted for 48% of musicians-and-singers jobs. Religious, grantmaking, civic, professional, and similar organizations accounted for 35%; performing arts, spectator sports, and related industries accounted for 12%; and educational services accounted for 3%. The remaining share is not assigned to a category in the facts reported here.
These employer and work-status measures place live musicians inside a mixed occupational market. A performer may work in a concert setting, teach, perform through a religious organization, or combine self-employment with other engagements. Consequently, the BLS occupation total should be treated as a useful upper-level indicator for musician employment, not as a count of concert jobs only.
U.S. music occupations and wages
The BLS Occupational Employment and Wages—May 2024 release provides a separate occupation-and-wage snapshot. It counted 50,680 U.S. jobs for musicians, singers, and related workers in May 2024. Their mean hourly wage was $51.57 and their median hourly wage was $38.76.
Within the release, musicians and singers accounted for 38,350 jobs. Their mean hourly wage was $55.13 and their median hourly wage was $42.45. Music directors and composers accounted for 12,330 jobs, with a mean hourly wage of $40.50, a mean annual wage of $84,230, and a median hourly wage of $30.61. The release also counted 8,170 jobs for disc jockeys other than radio DJs, whose median hourly wage was $20.59.
| U.S. occupation or group | Jobs, May 2024 | Mean hourly wage | Median hourly wage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Musicians, singers, and related workers | 50,680 | $51.57 | $38.76 |
| Musicians and singers | 38,350 | $55.13 | $42.45 |
| Music directors and composers | 12,330 | $40.50 | $30.61 |
| Disc jockeys other than radio DJs | 8,170 | Not supplied | $20.59 |
These wage figures are estimates of pay, not employment counts. Mean and median values answer different questions: the mean is the arithmetic average, while the median is the midpoint of the wage distribution. The difference between them can signal that earnings are distributed unevenly, although the supplied figures alone do not explain the causes.
For comparison across years, the BLS May 2023 musicians-and-singers table counted 35,520 U.S. jobs and reported a mean hourly wage of $51.65. That 2023 OEWS estimate and the 2024 estimate are separate annual measurements with different reported job totals; they should not be treated as a perfectly like-for-like time series without examining the underlying methodology.
The 2025 Occupational Outlook Handbook provides another wage view for the broader musicians-and-singers occupation. In May 2025, the median hourly wage was $47.80. The lowest-paid 10% earned less than $20.35 per hour, while the highest-paid 10% earned more than $132.56 per hour. These percentile figures describe the spread of reported hourly wages and reinforce that a single median does not represent every musician’s earnings.
The longer U.S. event-promoter trend
The BLS event-promoter analysis tracks private-industry promoters of performing arts, sports, and similar events. It is a broader live-event proxy, not a live-music-only series, and it excludes self-employed workers. The 2024 figure is preliminary.
Average employment in this promoter category was 66,585 jobs in 2001 and 79,099 in 2005. It reached 93,185 in 2010, 124,752 in 2015, and 155,221 in 2019. The series then fell to 84,667 jobs in 2020, before recovering to 101,686 in 2021, 145,597 in 2022, 164,074 in 2023, and 182,307 in preliminary 2024 data.
| Year | Average jobs |
|---|---|
| 2001 | 66,585 |
| 2005 | 79,099 |
| 2010 | 93,185 |
| 2015 | 124,752 |
| 2019 | 155,221 |
| 2020 | 84,667 |
| 2021 | 101,686 |
| 2022 | 145,597 |
| 2023 | 164,074 |
| 2024 preliminary | 182,307 |
The sequence places the 2020 decline and subsequent recovery in the same broad employment context as live events. It cannot isolate music promoters from sports and other performing-arts promoters, and it cannot capture self-employed workers. Its value is therefore directional: it indicates how a related private-industry employer category changed over time.
How to interpret these employment statistics
The most important distinction is scope. The UK core music-industry figures count people across a wide music economy. The UK touring study estimates direct and broader economic impacts in FTE jobs. U.S. BLS musician figures count an occupation that includes live, recording, church, education, and other work. The promoter series covers several types of events and excludes self-employment.
Dates also matter. The observed U.S. musician employment figure is for 2025, while the 2035 number is a BLS forecast. The UK touring figures are reported for 2022, 2023, and 2024, and the promoter value for 2024 is preliminary. Wage measures are tied to specific survey periods, including May 2024 and May 2025, and should remain labeled with those dates.
Taken together, the statistics support a measured picture of live-music employment: a broad and highly self-employed music workforce, a touring labor market best expressed through FTE estimates, an occupation with many annual openings despite flat projected net growth, and a related event-promoter sector that recovered after 2020. None of these measures alone is a complete count of everyone employed by live music.