The 2021 Salary Survey is the 36th in a series of the annual survey of art museum salaries issued by the Association of Art Museum Directors. The survey represents responses from 207 of 220 museums surveyed, a response rate of 94%, and covers more than 50 different staff positions, from the director’s office to leadership and support positions in curatorial, education, advancement, communications, and security departments. Among the museums surveyed were both current and former AAMD members in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
General characteristics of responding museums include, in 2020, nearly half of the museums had 51 or more full-time employees; 20 museums had more than 250 full-time employees. New York had the largest concentration of AAM-affiliated museums, amounting to 27, followed by California (17) and Florida and Texas, at 13 each. While the response rate of 94% enables this report to be statistically representative of institutions eligible for AAMD membership, one should not assume relevance to museums of other disciplines. Survey data has been captured based on fiscal years of museums, and not calendar year, which all Covid impacts may not be immediately apparent.
The 2021 Salary Survey was developed in partnership with Stax Inc.