Archivists and Curators Salary — UK & US Data (2025)
✓ Sourced directly from ONS ASHE & BLS OES · Checked for accuracy at every rebuild · First published: 2026-08-25 · Last updated: 2026-10-25
✓ ONS & BLS Verified Rates — Updated July 2026 · Every figure checked against the official source dataset and reviewed by Jordan Morley at each rebuild, not generated or estimated by AI.
ONS ASHE 2025 (provisional) · BLS OES May 2025As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Links below are affiliate links.
UK Salary Overview
The median salary for a archivists and curators in the UK is £33,096 per year (gross, before tax), based on ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings data for 2025 (provisional). There are approximately 9,000 jobs in this occupation across the UK. If you're heading into a pay review or a new offer, a good salary negotiation guide can help you land nearer the top of these ranges.
↑ Pay rank: #199 of 363 UK occupations tracked on this site — higher-paying than roughly 45% of them, and #19 of 20 within professional & technical. US equivalent ranks #384 of 861.
Signing a new offer? Employment contract templates at LawDepot cover offer letters, NDAs and employment agreements.
Career Essentials
Role-specific interview prep for this occupation.
Check Price →A new job often means a new city, car or mortgage application — check your score first. 7-day trial for $1.
Start $1 Trial →What This Job Involves
Appraise, edit, and direct safekeeping of permanent records and historically valuable documents. Participate in research activities based on archival materials.
Typical duties, per the US Department of Labor's O*NET occupational database (mapped to this role's closest US equivalent, Archivists):
- Organize archival records and develop classification systems to facilitate access to archival materials.
- Provide reference services and assistance for users needing archival materials.
- Prepare archival records, such as document descriptions, to allow easy access to information.
- Create and maintain accessible, retrievable computer archives and databases, incorporating current advances in electronic information storage technology.
- Establish and administer policy guidelines concerning public access and use of materials.
- Direct activities of workers who assist in arranging, cataloguing, exhibiting, and maintaining collections of valuable materials.
Source: O*NET OnLine, 25-4011.00 (US Dept. of Labor, public domain). Task duties describe the US-classified equivalent role and may vary slightly from UK practice for the same job title.
UK Regional Breakdown
| Region | Median salary | vs national |
|---|---|---|
| London | £35,317 | +6.7% |
Regions without published data for this occupation are omitted (ONS suppresses small samples).
Salary in Context
Within professional & technical as a whole (20 occupations tracked on this site), archivists and curators pays about 19% below the average median for the category, ranking 19 of 20 by median pay. That's useful context if you're weighing this role against a lateral move within the same broad field, rather than against occupations with a completely different pay structure.
US Salary Overview
In the United States, the equivalent occupation (Archivists, SOC 25-4011) has a national median wage of $64,550 per year according to BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025). Around 8,000 people are employed in this occupation in the US. Figures are shown in local currency and are not converted.
US Top States by Median Salary
| State | Median salary | Mean salary |
|---|---|---|
| District of Columbia | $93,040 | $93,530 |
| Connecticut | $79,790 | $81,360 |
| Massachusetts | $78,180 | $81,700 |
| Rhode Island | $76,990 | $80,690 |
| Washington | $76,490 | $78,620 |
| Maryland | $76,440 | $86,880 |
| New York | $73,860 | $78,040 |
| California | $70,530 | $77,160 |
| New Jersey | $67,900 | $74,040 |
| Minnesota | $65,740 | $60,130 |
See the full US state-by-state breakdown for archivists and curators →
Recommended Gear & Prep
Remote and hybrid roles are standard — a VPN protects client data and your accounts on any network. 2-year deal available.
Get NordVPN →Protect client data and personal accounts on home and public networks — essential for remote and hybrid roles.
Get Surfshark →Securing a new network connection is only half of it — a lot of job-seekers reuse old passwords across job-board and employer accounts. NordPass generates and stores unique ones for every account.
Related Jobs
Work out what this salary means after tax with our take-home pay calculator.
US-based and ready to go for this salary? ResumeSpice professionally written resumes help you stand out for competitive roles — from $149.
What Affects Pay for Archivists and Curators, and How to Use This Data When Negotiating
The figures above describe the market, not any one employer's ceiling. A few things generally explain where an individual lands within that range:
- Location: Pay for the same job title can vary by tens of thousands depending on region or state — see the location breakdown on this page for this specific role.
- Experience level: The gap between the 10th and 90th percentile mostly reflects years of experience and seniority within the role, rather than employer generosity alone.
- Employer size and sector: Larger organisations and higher-paying sectors tend to sit above the median for a given role; smaller employers and some non-profit or public-sector employers often sit below it.
- Qualifications and certifications: Professional qualifications relevant to a role can shift where someone lands within the percentile range, particularly in regulated or technical occupations.
- How common the role is: Roles with fewer people employed nationally tend to show wider pay variation than high-volume occupations, simply because the underlying sample is smaller and less standardised.
If you're using this page to prepare for a pay conversation, a few practical steps:
- Bring the actual percentile figures from this page into the conversation — a specific, sourced number ("the median for this role is £X") carries more weight than a general sense that you're underpaid.
- If you have several years of experience or a scarce skill set, anchor to the 75th percentile rather than the median — the median describes the middle of the market, not where an experienced hire should expect to land.
- Use the regional or state figure, not the national one, if your employer benchmarks pay nationally but you're based in a higher-paying area — the location breakdown above is the more relevant number to quote.
- Treat total compensation, not just base salary, as the real comparison — pension contributions, bonus structure and benefits can close a gap that base pay alone doesn't show.
- Time the conversation around a review cycle or a clear recent win, and bring both arguments — the market-rate evidence on this page and your own contribution — together rather than either alone.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the average salary for a archivists and curators in the UK?
The UK median is £33,096 per year (gross, before tax), based on ONS ASHE 2025 (provisional) data. The mean is £32,324.
How does the US salary compare?
The equivalent US occupation (Archivists) has a national median of $64,550 per year (BLS OES May 2025). Figures are in local currency and not converted.
Where This Data Comes From
The UK figures on this page come from the Office for National Statistics' Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), the UK government's official annual employer survey of pay — not a self-reported salary site, and not a jobs-board average of advertised (rather than actually paid) salaries. The US figures come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OES) programme, the US equivalent: a large-scale survey of employers rather than job seekers. Both are gross figures — before income tax, National Insurance, or US federal/state tax and FICA — for the reason that gross pay is what's actually comparable across employers and locations; take-home pay depends on each person's own tax situation.
UK occupations are classified under the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) 2020, and US occupations under the equivalent US SOC system — the two classification systems don't map perfectly onto each other, so where this page shows a UK and a US occupation together, that pairing is our own editorial best match for the closest equivalent role, not an official government cross-reference. See About & methodology for the full data-sourcing notes that apply across every page on this site.
Data: ONS ASHE Table 14/15, 2025 provisional · BLS OES, May 2025 · Page built 2026-10-25