There's a contradiction sitting at the heart of our industry that I don't think we talk about: we say we need experienced art technicians. But where are those experienced technicians supposed to come from? The magical art technician tree?

Entry into the art technical profession has predominantly been informal forever. You got in through word of mouth. Through someone you studied with at art school. Through being in the right place at the right time, knowing the right people, volunteering for the right institution. Through slowly building confidence over years of watching and doing and making mistakes when the stakes were low enough to survive them.

That's how most of us got here.

But that system only works when access to those spaces is broad. And is it still — I don't think it is.

Art education, where most technicians came from, has shifted significantly. Educational costs are high. Working and middle-class routes into creative education are narrowing. The people coming through art and design schools — the traditional pipeline into technical roles — are increasingly those who can afford to be there. And if our recruitment still relies on those informal networks, on who you studied with, who you bumped into, who put in a word — then we are quietly narrowing our workforce without ever making a conscious decision to do so.

And this matters for a very specific reason. Historically, a significant part of the art technical workforce came from working-class and middle-income artists and makers who took on technical roles to support their practice — to pay the bills while staying close to the work they loved. That proximity was invaluable. It means art technicians aren't just skilled with their hands — they understand materials, objects, artistic intent. They get an insight into how the industry actually works from the inside — everyone wants to know how the sausage is made.

But as art education becomes increasingly accessible only to those with financial security behind them, they are less likely to need — or want — to spend time in cold storage facilities, humping crates, cleaning dust off historical furniture, generally grafting through the unglamorous but essential work that keeps cultural institutions functioning. And that's not a judgment — it's just reality. The financial and professional calculus is different for them.

So the pool of new people is reducing, and yet most organisations are still advertising for technicians with three to five years of experience.

But who's creating those three to five years? There are only a handful of institutions and businesses that take on people with little or no experience, but they only stay for a year or two, get their licences, and move on because the pay isn't a livable wage.

Are we building structured pathways for people to gain that experience — or just hoping someone else has done it? Are we investing in developing new talent — or competing for the same small pool of people who already have the right CV or recommendations? Are we widening our entry routes — or recycling the same networks we've always relied on?

Because here's the uncomfortable reality: you cannot hire experience if you are not prepared to build it.

If we keep prioritising fully formed technicians without investing in development, we create a bottleneck. And that bottleneck is already showing — in an ageing workforce, in continued lack of diversity, in businesses and organisations turning down work because they don't have the in-house capability to deliver it.

Experience doesn't regenerate automatically. It has to be grown, deliberately, with time and investment behind it.

Active recruitment, structured training and genuine development pathways are no longer optional extras. They are how this profession is going to survive.

Because the magical art technician tree isn't growing any new branches on its own.

How is experience actually being created in your organisation — not just hired or outsourced? Do you have structured development pathways, or are you relying on the same informal routes that have always existed?

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