The results of a pay survey among UK audio producers has been published. A summary of the findings can be viewed now on the UK Audio Network’s resources page (UKAN, in case you’re not familiar, is the main UK audio email listserv started by Lily Ames to “promote transparency, industry growth and community building” and which just celebrated its 1,000th member) and I understand that more detailed numbers could be released in the future. For now, we have these average day rates, broken down by the respondents’ years of experience in the audio industry and whether the work in question was editorial or branded.
For those not familiar with the current USD-GBP exchange rate, that puts the average day rate for a producer on a non-branded project somewhere just over $250. There’s already been some discussion of the results on the listserv, and a suggestion that this might be on the high side for those not working in radio or radio-connected podcasts, or for big publishers like Spotify or Audible. Eleanor McDowall, a producer at the London-based production company Falling Tree and who together with Ames and Heidi Pett helped to organise the survey, addressed this on the thread, saying:
At a glance there’s a really wide spread of day rates in the survey (with big gaps sometimes between people with seemingly the same level of experience, doing the same type of work, for a similar outlet). With greater transparency the hope would be to push for better (fairer) industry standards and to give a bit of back up to freelancers negotiating budgets with some of the other outlets mentioned.”
So more detail to come, I hope. The organisers were also keen to stress that this is just supposed to be a snapshot of producers’ experiences rather than a fixed rate card, but regardless it’s good to see greater transparency around pay regardless.