Annual Reports

Our latest Annual Report details our work in 2024/25 across the UK.

President’s introduction

My focus as President remains on advocacy for our vitally important museums at a time of challenge and change for the sector; support for members and the wider workforce to ensure that it represents the diversity of the communities we serve; and continuing our important work on environmental sustainability and climate justice. I am pleased to say that over the past year the Museums Association (MA) has continued to support our members and the wider sector to deliver in every one of these areas.

We continue to live in challenging times, where the threat of polarisation and division casts a shadow over our communities. I remain ever optimistic, however, that museums can offer hope and support as a powerful convening force in the world – helping to bring people together to overcome differences and to discover how much we have common, rather than what might set us apart.

“Museums can offer hope and support as a powerful convening force in the world – helping to bring people together to overcome differences”

It is within the gift of the museums we work for to provide safe, welcoming, civic spaces where people of all ages and from all backgrounds can explore, learn and grow together. Needless to say, in order to provide those vitally important spaces the sector needs adequate funding. One of the key points we have made to politicians and stakeholders when we have met with them is that to realise the ambition of everyone in the UK having a sustainable and good quality museum near to where they live, strategic long-term national and local funding must be in place.

As part of our ongoing advocacy work we have engaged with sector organisations to ensure that we have joined-up messaging about the value of museums and to fully understand what is needed in terms of investment. In the past year we have refreshed Museums Change Lives, our flagship campaign, with case studies from across the UK that demonstrate how museums can increase our sense of wellbeing, help us feel proud of where we have come from, and inspire, challenge and stimulate us. We will continue to promote this positive impact through our advocacy work and support it through the Esmée Fairbairn Communities and Collections Fund and the new Health and Wellbeing in Museums Fund.

Our workforce support and development programmes remain at the heart of what we do as a membership organisation. Over the past year we have supported dozens of members to achieve the Associateship of the Museums Association (AMA) and the Fellowship of the Museums Association (FMA), as well as delivering support through online learning, career conversations and our Wellbeing Hub. This year we also launched a Freelance Hub on our website.

To support the development of a more inclusive and representative workforce we are continuing our Anti-racist Museums Programme, which takes six museums on a journey to becoming anti-racist organisations, with this year’s programme building on the positive evaluation from the first cohort.

I am passionate about environmental sustainability and the MA’s work on climate justice continues to support museums to make changes within their own organisation and to work with their communities to effect positive change.

As well as these priorities, we have continued our review of the Code of Ethics with extensive consultation and engagement with sector bodies. We know this is an important document for members and the wider sector and we hope the new code will support best ethical practice across all areas of museum work.

As a UK-wide organisation we have a responsibility to serve our members in all nations of the UK and to advocate for museums and museum workers in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. In the next year there will be elections in Scotland and Wales, and we are working with stakeholders and sector bodies to produce museum manifestos in those countries so that we can advocate the value of museums to politicians of all parties.

We will also analyse the emerging impacts of devolution and local government reorganisation in England to make sure that the value of museums is fully understood and appreciated.

Undoubtedly the future will continue to hold challenges for us all, as well as many opportunities to work with our communities and our collections to make a positive difference to people’s lives. The MA commits to supporting that vital work in all its forms.

Annual General Meeting 2025

The report also contains the agenda for our Annual General Meeting, which was held digitally, working with our independent voting provider MiVoice to allow all members to vote before and during the AGM session at our annual conference on 7 October 2025.

The AGM session opened with a keynote from our president and finished with the announcement of the winners of the Museums Change Lives Awards.