Commissioned by Crafts Council UK and partners
The first report to identify and gauge appetite for British craft for over a decade reveals our passion for craft has never been greater – 73% of UK adults had bought craft in 2019 – snapping up almost 25 million handcrafted objects. In a significant shift, almost a third (32%) of today’s buyers are aged under 35 – making this demographic the biggest buyer of craft today.
The report was implemented by the Crafts Council and eight leading national partners* (among 5,000 UK residents, 1,500 US citizens and 1,700 professional makers and implemented prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. It has subsequently been layered with a further Crafts Council survey carried out among 573 UK-based makers post lockdown.
You can read the Market for Craft executive summary here and the full report here.
Key findings from the Market for Craft Report include:
- The under 35-year-old craft buying market has grown by 32% since 2006
- 10.3m of us are buying craft online – a figure that has more than tripled over the last decade. However, the majority of people still prefer to buy in-person
- Online platforms have fuelled much of this growth: in December 2018, Etsy reported that there were 220,000 active sellers in the UK with a further 9,000 makers on Folksy
- Jewellery is the most popular craft discipline to purchase by volume, but glass and metal have seen the most sizeable growth since 20066
- 85% of Americans surveyed would buy a piece of craft compared with 88% here in the UK. 28% have bought from a UK maker and 59% would consider doing so – pointing to considerable potential for growth. There are 10.5m untapped, potential consumers living in New York and LA.
*Market for Craft Report partners are Arts Council of Wales, Contemporary Visual Arts Network, Craft Northern Ireland, Craft Scotland, Crafts Council UK, Creative Scotland, Creative United, The Goldsmiths’ Company, Great Northern Events/Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair