Making It Work 2025: Understanding Ontario’s Arts, Culture and Creative Workforce
Six years ago, Work in Culture released Making It Work, a groundbreaking study that provided crucial data about Ontario’s arts, culture and creative sector workforce. The research became an essential resource for understanding creative careers across the province.
Today, our sector looks dramatically different. The global pandemic reshaped how we work, create, and connect. Conversations about diversity, equity and inclusion have intensified. Artificial intelligence has emerged as both opportunity and challenge. The gig economy has expanded, bringing new forms of both flexibility and precarity.
In this transformed landscape, it’s time to take stock once again.
Making It Work 2025 builds on the proven methodology from the original study to profile today’s arts, culture and creative sector labour market in Ontario. The research asks critical questions: How has our workforce evolved? What new skills gaps have emerged? What barriers persist, and what new ones have appeared? Most importantly, what solutions can we collectively pursue?
Who Should Participate
This research is only as strong as the voices that inform it. The survey is open to anyone working in Ontario’s arts, culture and creative sector, whether you’re an independent artist, work for a cultural organization, or run your own creative business.
Your input will directly inform future programs, policies, and supports that aim to create more sustainable, equitable careers in the sector.
Taking the Survey
The survey launches October 1 and will be open until October 27. It takes approximately 10 minutes to complete and is designed to meet the highest accessibility standards.
Take the survey: https://bit.ly/MakingItWork2025
All responses will be held strictly confidential. Information collected will be used and reported only in aggregate form.
Why This Matters
The original Making It Work study succeeded because it provided facts, not just anecdotes. It gave our sector concrete data to advocate for change and better support.
Making It Work 2025 will do the same for our current moment, offering a clear picture of post-pandemic workforce realities, evidence-based insights into skills gaps and training needs, and concrete recommendations for more sustainable creative careers.
By participating, you’re helping to move from individual struggles to collective solutions, from anecdotes to evidence that can drive real change.
Learn more and take the survey: https://bit.ly/MakingItWork2025
Making It Work 2025 is a research initiative from Work in Culture in partnership with Nordicity, and generously supported by Ontario Creates, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Cultural Policy Hub at OCAD University.