Full House Oct 2026

Don’t outsource the foundations

In this edition of Full House, Arts Marketing Association’s (AMA) Matt Ecclestone explores why nurturing the next generation of arts marketers – and knowing where to draw the line with AI – has never mattered more

Recent figures on entry-level recruitment in the UK make for sobering reading, and the arts sector is far from immune. A policy paper from the UK Government published in June 2026 speaks of weak entry-level hiring and a decline in most entry-level occupations. Fewer new roles are being created, with the “way in” to a career in arts marketing narrowing just as our audiences and business models are demanding more than ever. 

This should worry all of us, not just those starting out. If we don’t actively develop the next generation of arts marketers, the leaders of the future won’t have the foundational knowledge needed to drive organisations forward. 

Building the leadership pipeline of the future 

It’s tempting, in tight financial times, to see entry-level investment as a “nice-to-have” rather than a strategic priority. I’d argue the opposite is true. Every leader currently steering a major opera house, orchestra, dance company or theatre started somewhere – from the box office, front of house or a marketing assistant post. A bit of copywriting and a lot of data entry. Those early years are where future arts marketing leaders gradually learn how organisations work, where they build relationships across departments, and where they develop the judgement that only “on-the-job” training can teach. 

If we stop recruiting and nurturing people at this level now, we create a leadership gap 10 to 15 years down the line that will be far tougher and costlier to fix than the current squeeze on payrolls, with increased employer costs to National Insurance contributions. Investing in early-career talent isn’t charity or purely good PR – it’s succession planning. The leaders the cultural sector needs in 2040 are the entry-level marketers we choose to hire, mentor and grow today. 

Upskilling at every level, not just on entry 

This isn’t just an early-career issue. Every one of us, at every level, needs to keep upskilling, and right now that conversation is dominated by artificial intelligence (AI). AI tools are evolving at pace, with many of us using large language models for productivity gains. It’s clear that AI isn’t going anywhere and we need to work with it. As arts professionals, we need to understand how we can use it responsibly and shape how we use it to reflect our values. The AI landscape might feel like uncharted waters, but it’s our job to equip our workforce with the tools they need to navigate it with assurance. 

With knowledge comes confidence, though alongside this is a nuance that can be easy to miss. Established marketers can approach AI tools with a foundational marketing knowledge honed by experience and repetition – writing copy by hand, planning out segmentation, and sifting through audience research – drafting and redrafting until the fundamentals became second nature. It’s the kind of knowledge that shortcuts cannot replicate. This instinct enables them to interrogate an AI-generated campaign plan, spot weak audience insight, and get a sense of when the tone of copy is “off” – all because they have spent years doing the work manually. This experience allows them to make educated judgements on AI output. 

Emerging arts marketers and arts administrators in general risk skipping straight to AI-assisted output without ever building that underlying muscle. They may be highly capable of prompting a tool, but less able to explain why a particular tactic works, or to recognise a plausible-sounding but flawed answer. If we want AI to make our sector sharper, we need established staff who can teach the “why” just as much as we need all staff to be learning the “how” of the AI tools themselves. 

Choosing where AI belongs, and where patience still wins 

This is why the sector needs to think carefully and collectively about where AI belongs, and which human capabilities need to be retained and developed. Not every task should be accelerated. Some skills, and some people, need time. Time to sit with a difficult brief, to make mistakes in a spreadsheet nobody else is looking at, to write a shoddy first draft and understand why it’s bad. That slow, sometimes frustrating process is not inefficiency – it’s learning. 

With technological change, we can’t preserve every task or jump to ban AI. We need to establish principles, boundaries and accountability. This is far beyond a standard AI policy or list of approved tools. We need to apply checks, but also give people the space to make mistakes. We need to train our teams to judge and analyse AI output, not just how to craft the perfect prompt. 

Keep the doors open 

Let’s use the changes brought by AI as a call to action: to keep the doors open for emerging talent, to keep teaching the fundamentals alongside the new tools, and to keep believing that a sector which invests in its people will always outlast one that simply cuts costs. Full houses aren’t built by accident, and neither are full careers. Let’s keep building both.