Museum Hiring Index · final
September 2026
Every museum, gallery and curatorial role first advertised this month, counted from institutions’ own careers pages. Recomputed on every visit; final once the month ends.
- Roles advertised
- 289
- State pay
- 29%
- Median advertised
- €65,471
- a year, annualised, 94 figures
- Fields
- 10
- with at least one role
By field
| Field | Roles |
|---|---|
| Curatorial | 63 |
| Intern & Fellowship | 49 |
| Education & Public Programmes | 42 |
| Collections | 36 |
| Production | 31 |
| Leadership | 25 |
| Conservation | 19 |
| Other | 12 |
| Archives | 10 |
| Open Call & Residency | 2 |
By region
| Region | Roles |
|---|---|
| Europe | 184 |
| North America | 61 |
| UK & Ireland | 27 |
| Asia-Pacific | 8 |
| International | 5 |
| Latin America | 2 |
| Middle East | 2 |
Cities with most new roles
| New York | 13 |
| Los Angeles | 8 |
| Berlin | 7 |
| Karlsruhe | 4 |
| London | 4 |
| Paris | 4 |
| Edmonton | 3 |
| Long Island City | 3 |
Institutions advertising most
By role
How this is counted
A role counts for the month it first appeared on an institution’s own careers page, as seen by CuratorSearch’s daily check of several hundred museums, galleries and sector job boards. Roles that went up and came down between two checks are missed; roles reposted under a new title count twice; and when a source is added or a scraper starts reading more of it, the roles it already carried count in the month CuratorSearch first saw them, not the month they were posted. “State pay” means a figure or a public-sector grade in the posting itself — “competitive” does not count.
The median is of the pay figures archived in the month, annualised into euro at indicative rates so a monthly German grade and an annual New York figure can sit in one number; it is a midpoint across countries and seniority, not a rate for any job. Every underlying figure is public in the Curatorial Pay Archive (DOI 10.5281/zenodo.22544232), free under CC BY. Cite as “CuratorSearch Museum Hiring Index, September 2026, https://curatorsearch.com/hiring-index/2026-09”. The method and the first month’s figures are written up in a data note: How often do museum job postings state pay? A data note from one month of live listings, August–September 2026 (Zenodo, 2026).
The annual Pay Report, when it’s out
One email a year with the full year’s figures. Nothing else.
Cite this page
Samman, N. (2026). Museum Hiring Index, September 2026. CuratorSearch. https://curatorsearch.com/hiring-index/2026-09 (accessed 1 October 2026). DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.22544232.