PDN's Salary Survey: Who Earns What?
By David Walker; charts by Michael Goesele
Thursday, June 1 2006
Thursday, June 1 2006
Published on AllBusiness.com
Do women photographers earn less than male photographers? Do photo editors or art buyers earn higher salaries? If you're a wedding photographer, should you consider moving to the Midwest? If you're a studio manager, should you move to the West Coast? Who earns more money after 20 years in the business: a photographers' agent or an ad agency art buyer?
Thanks to the overwhelming response to PDN's first ever salary survey, we have answers to those questions. A total of 2,114 individuals from every sector of the industry responded to our survey, answering questions about their 2005 income. We conducted the survey in April through PDNOnline.
As you'll see in the charts below (including those reprinted from our June issue), we have aggregated and analyzed the data for average and median salaries by occupation. For certain occupations, we broke out average income by factors such as gender, region, population density (ie, whether they are based in a big city or small town) and years of experience.
The largest category of respondents by far was self-employed photographers. In all, 1,040 of them completed our survey. They included 244 advertising photographers, 229 photojournalists and editorial photographers, 200 wedding and portrait photographers, 101 corporate photographers, plus dozens of others specializing in architecture and interiors, stock, music and entertainment, and other niches.
The rankings of freelance photographer specialties by income was mostly--but not entirely--predictable. Male photographers still vastly outnumber female photographers; more surprising, however, was the great disparity in their earnings. (By comparison, the mean salaries for male and female reps are almost identical.) Advertising, corporate, and stock photographers earn twice as much (or more) than photojournalists and editorial shooters. Music and entertainment photographers do signi?cantly better than photojournalists/editorial shooters, though not as well as the advertising and corporate types. And pity the ?ne-art photographers, who obviously get up in the morning for reasons other than money. The surprise was the lower-than-expected median income for the 27 fashion photographers who responded; they had a few high earners who brought the group average up, but the low earners among them are on par with photojournalists.
(Here's a refresher course in statistics. Mean income is the average income; it's calculated by adding all the incomes in a category and dividing by the number of responses for that category. Median income is the income point at which half of the respondents earn less, and half of the respondents earn more. In many instances, the mean is higher than the median; that's because a few big-earners pulled up the average, or mean, income.)
Wedding and portrait photographers, meanwhile, do about as well as photojournalists, in terms of both mean and median income. Regionally speaking, wedding photographers do best in the Midwest and southwest, and worst in the southeast.
Among the non-photographer categories, photo editors responded enthusiastically. We heard from 202 of them. The majority (131) were magazine photo editors, but those working for book publishers, stock agencies, and electronic media (broadcast and the web) also weighed in.
Meanwhile, response rates from studio managers, art buyers, and reps were also respectable. About 100 people, give or take, responded for each category. One interesting result of our survey was that art buyers' average and median income maxes out after a dozen years or so. Another interesting result was the peak in reps' average income: sometime between 13 and 20 years on the job, income for reps reached a maximum and then declined signi?cantly after 20 years. That may re?ect a sampling error (more on that in a minute). Another possible explanation, though, is that it re?ects ageism in the industry: after 20 years, you're at a disadvantage because you're not young and hip anymore.
You might think the same ageism faces photographers with more than 20 years of experience, but our charts on"Self-Employed Photographers' Income Over Time," "Advertising Photographers' Income Over Time" and "Photo-J/Editorial Photographers' Income Over Time" reveal a more complex story.
Finally, a word about the analysis: The survey asked respondents to indicate their income range in increments of $5,000, $10,000, and even $100,000 for the highest ranges. In order to calculate mean incomes from that data, we took the midpoint of each range. An income response of $45,000 to $49,999, for instance, was recorded as $47,500 for the calculations, while a response of $200,000 to $299,999 was recorded as $250,000. For those who indicated incomes of "less than $20,000," we used the arbitrary ?gure of $17,500 for the calculations. For those indicating incomes at the top end of our scale, we simply used the low end of the range, so an income response of "$500,000 or more," for instance, would have been recorded as $500,000 for our calculations. That had the effect of yielding the most conservative mean for the category. Readers should also note that the sample was not random; the respondents volunteered to give us this information. So the values of means and medians shown in these illustrations may differ from the actual values.
The smaller the sample size for a particular category, the higher the uncertainty of the results.
Here are the charts.
Income by Occupation and Gender
Percentage of Respondents by Gender
Self-Employed Photographers' Income Over Time
Studio Managers' Income by Region
Studio Managers' Income by Population Density
Advertising Photographers' Income Over Time
Photo-J/Editorial Photographers' Income Over Time
Photo-J/Editorial Photographers' Income by Region
Photo-J/Editorial Photographers' Income by Population Density
Newspaper Photographers' Income by Population Density
Wedding & Portrait Photographers' Income by Region
Wedding & Portrait Photographers' Income by Population Density
Wedding & Portrait Photographers' Income by Gender
Corporate Photographers' Income by Region
Corporate Photographers' Income by Population Density
Here are charts reprinted from our June issue:
Self-Employed Photographers' Income by Specialty
Photo Editors' Income by Type of Employer
Studio Managers' Income
Art Directors/Designers' Income By Employer
Account Executives' Income
Income Growth Over Time For: Art Buyers, Photo Editors and Photo Reps
Thanks to the overwhelming response to PDN's first ever salary survey, we have answers to those questions. A total of 2,114 individuals from every sector of the industry responded to our survey, answering questions about their 2005 income. We conducted the survey in April through PDNOnline.
As you'll see in the charts below (including those reprinted from our June issue), we have aggregated and analyzed the data for average and median salaries by occupation. For certain occupations, we broke out average income by factors such as gender, region, population density (ie, whether they are based in a big city or small town) and years of experience.
The largest category of respondents by far was self-employed photographers. In all, 1,040 of them completed our survey. They included 244 advertising photographers, 229 photojournalists and editorial photographers, 200 wedding and portrait photographers, 101 corporate photographers, plus dozens of others specializing in architecture and interiors, stock, music and entertainment, and other niches.
The rankings of freelance photographer specialties by income was mostly--but not entirely--predictable. Male photographers still vastly outnumber female photographers; more surprising, however, was the great disparity in their earnings. (By comparison, the mean salaries for male and female reps are almost identical.) Advertising, corporate, and stock photographers earn twice as much (or more) than photojournalists and editorial shooters. Music and entertainment photographers do signi?cantly better than photojournalists/editorial shooters, though not as well as the advertising and corporate types. And pity the ?ne-art photographers, who obviously get up in the morning for reasons other than money. The surprise was the lower-than-expected median income for the 27 fashion photographers who responded; they had a few high earners who brought the group average up, but the low earners among them are on par with photojournalists.
(Here's a refresher course in statistics. Mean income is the average income; it's calculated by adding all the incomes in a category and dividing by the number of responses for that category. Median income is the income point at which half of the respondents earn less, and half of the respondents earn more. In many instances, the mean is higher than the median; that's because a few big-earners pulled up the average, or mean, income.)
Wedding and portrait photographers, meanwhile, do about as well as photojournalists, in terms of both mean and median income. Regionally speaking, wedding photographers do best in the Midwest and southwest, and worst in the southeast.
Among the non-photographer categories, photo editors responded enthusiastically. We heard from 202 of them. The majority (131) were magazine photo editors, but those working for book publishers, stock agencies, and electronic media (broadcast and the web) also weighed in.
Meanwhile, response rates from studio managers, art buyers, and reps were also respectable. About 100 people, give or take, responded for each category. One interesting result of our survey was that art buyers' average and median income maxes out after a dozen years or so. Another interesting result was the peak in reps' average income: sometime between 13 and 20 years on the job, income for reps reached a maximum and then declined signi?cantly after 20 years. That may re?ect a sampling error (more on that in a minute). Another possible explanation, though, is that it re?ects ageism in the industry: after 20 years, you're at a disadvantage because you're not young and hip anymore.
You might think the same ageism faces photographers with more than 20 years of experience, but our charts on"Self-Employed Photographers' Income Over Time," "Advertising Photographers' Income Over Time" and "Photo-J/Editorial Photographers' Income Over Time" reveal a more complex story.
Finally, a word about the analysis: The survey asked respondents to indicate their income range in increments of $5,000, $10,000, and even $100,000 for the highest ranges. In order to calculate mean incomes from that data, we took the midpoint of each range. An income response of $45,000 to $49,999, for instance, was recorded as $47,500 for the calculations, while a response of $200,000 to $299,999 was recorded as $250,000. For those who indicated incomes of "less than $20,000," we used the arbitrary ?gure of $17,500 for the calculations. For those indicating incomes at the top end of our scale, we simply used the low end of the range, so an income response of "$500,000 or more," for instance, would have been recorded as $500,000 for our calculations. That had the effect of yielding the most conservative mean for the category. Readers should also note that the sample was not random; the respondents volunteered to give us this information. So the values of means and medians shown in these illustrations may differ from the actual values.
The smaller the sample size for a particular category, the higher the uncertainty of the results.
Here are the charts.
Income by Occupation and Gender
Percentage of Respondents by Gender
Self-Employed Photographers' Income Over Time
Studio Managers' Income by Region
Studio Managers' Income by Population Density
Advertising Photographers' Income Over Time
Photo-J/Editorial Photographers' Income Over Time
Photo-J/Editorial Photographers' Income by Region
Photo-J/Editorial Photographers' Income by Population Density
Newspaper Photographers' Income by Population Density
Wedding & Portrait Photographers' Income by Region
Wedding & Portrait Photographers' Income by Population Density
Wedding & Portrait Photographers' Income by Gender
Corporate Photographers' Income by Region
Corporate Photographers' Income by Population Density
Here are charts reprinted from our June issue:
Self-Employed Photographers' Income by Specialty
Photo Editors' Income by Type of Employer
Studio Managers' Income
Art Directors/Designers' Income By Employer
Account Executives' Income
Income Growth Over Time For: Art Buyers, Photo Editors and Photo Reps