Tate cuts Seven Per Cent of its Workforce

The museum, which operates across four venues in London, Liverpool and Cornwall, is making the cuts, which amount to seven per cent of its workforce, through voluntary redundancies and a hiring freeze.

In its 2023–24 annual report, the trustees approved a deficit budget using reserves built up in the two previous financial years. Although visitor numbers rose from nearly 6m in 2022–23 to 6.4m in 2023–24, they are still below pre-pandemic levels. Seventy per cent of the Tate’s funding is raised through its own activities – including ticket sales, private and corporate donations. The FT quotes Tate sources as saying that the institution is trying to break even before it embarks on fundraising ‘to support its plans for growth’. Tate Liverpool is undergoing a major redevelopment, Tate St Ives is restoring Barbara Hepworth’s studio space at the Palais de Danse and Tate Modern turns 25 in May.