UK Survey: Comic Creators Face Financial Hardships
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The UK Comics Creators Research Report has been issued showing the results of a survey of 700 United Kingdom comics creators taken in the Fall of 2025. The ability to survive financially is disheartening. The vast majority of creators make less than a living wage from their comics endeavors necessitating employment outside the industry and government assistance to keep body and soul together.
KEY FINDINGS:
Comics creators are significantly more diverse than the UK population and creative industries in several areas: 13% are non-binary; 42% are LGBTQ+; 25% are disabled; 44% are neurodivergent…
…Except for ethnicity, where 89% are white (compared to 82% nationally);
Only 1/5 of respondents who want comics to be their career earn the majority of their income from comics;
89% of creators earning from traditional publishing make less than the UK National Living Wage;
72% rely on employment outside of comics (freelance, temporary, fixed-term or permanent);
13% are relying on UK state benefits (up from 9% in 2020);
63% of respondents cited ‘lack of financial income’ as a key challenge (being the main challenge for 28%);
57% cited ‘lack of time to create’ as a key challenge (being the main challenge for 25% of respondents);
Only 4% of creators use GenAI in their comics production, but 36% believe or know they have lost work or income due to GenAI;
Only 6% of respondents received public funding from arts councils; 4% from Arts Council England, 2% from Creative Scotland, and none at all from Arts Council Wales or Arts Council Northern Ireland.
The report can be downloaded as a pdf at the above link or there are “reader’s digest” versions at…
Heidi MacDonald of Comics Beat encapsulates the report.
Comics are doing great. Cartoonists? Not so much. At least that is the finding of a survey of 689 British cartoonists organized by the UK Comics Creators Research Report. Headed up by former UK Comics Laureate Hannah Berry, the study was jointly released by the Comics Cultural Impact Collective, the Association of Illustrators and the Society of Authors.
The complete report can be read here – it’s a lengthy and eloquent statement of something we all know: making a living as a cartoonist is very difficult. Almost 90% of respondents who earn income from traditional publishing make below the UK national living wage (£22,308) from their comics work. And 13% are relying on state benefits.
…while the sector is booming, the landscape for creators is increasingly precarious. Alongside low pay, comics creators are experiencing rising pressures on their time as they juggle multiple jobs and administrative tasks, as well as rising costs. Other challenges include the threat from AI…
Andy Oliver for the UK’s Broken Frontier site also summarizes the report.
The findings of the UK Comics Creators Research Report for 2025 have been published today and they make for sobering reading. The report, courtesy of the Comic Cultural Impact Collective, Association of Illustrators, and the Society of Authors (funded by Arts Council England and Arts University Bournemouth) is the most comprehensive survey of the realities of working in the art form since the first report of its kind back in 2020. It presents findings from a survey of 689 UK comic creators conducted in Autumn 2025.
Creators of comics struggling to survive despite a thriving industry
A report launched today lays bare the challenges facing creators of comics, revealing a landscape of financial instability and chronic overwork even as the sector itself enjoys increasing commercial success.
Melinda Spanoudi reports for London-based The Bookseller (registration required).
The UK Comics Creators Research Report, launched today by the Comics Cultural Impact Collective, the Association of Illustrators and the Society of Authors (SoA), has revealed widespread financial instability among creators, even as the sector reaches record commercial success. NielsenIQ BookScan figures included in the report show the UK comics market reached £78.7 million in 2025, a 13.9% increase on 2024, with children’s comic strip fiction and graphic novels hitting £25.9 million, a 28.7% rise and the biggest sales year ever recorded for the category in the UK.
The report describes a sector in which “the people who make comics thrive are, more often than not, struggling to survive”, citing low pay, rising costs, multiple jobs and the threat from AI among the challenges facing creators. It recommends developing comics-specific vocational training, creating practical guidance resources and recognising comics as a cultural art form in UK policy.
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