Historic England has issued a new and comprehensive economic valuation study of England’s archaeological activity.
Historic England writes:
England’s archaeological heritage generates significant, measurable public value, both for those who actively engage with it and for the wider population. There is strong support for the protection of archaeological heritage. A growing concern for the archaeology sector is storage. It is projected by 2027, 75% of the archaeology stores and public depositories could stop accepting the new artefacts due to a lack of capacity (Tsang, C., 2025).
More on the contingent valuation survey
When asked about contributing to a new National Archaeological Archive, respondents stated they would be willing to pay (WTP) an average (median) £10 per household as a one-off tax contribution.
One in three people said they would not take any amount of money in return for removing the legal protections for archaeological finds, showing strong support for protecting England’s archaeological assets.
For the respondents who would accept (so-called Willingness to Accept (WTA)) an amount of money for removing protections for artefacts, we then asked what they would accept for the loss of legal protections for archaeological discoveries. This compensation averaged (median) at £30 per household. While not technically comparable, the difference in the scale of WTP and WTA in broad terms suggests that people are more concerned about losing their right to access and experience archaeological finds than about the broader goal of protecting those finds.
Active engagement with heritage and archaeology improves wellbeing
Regularly visiting heritage sites is shown to improve one’s life satisfaction. This wellbeing benefit is valued at approximately £2,092 per person per year for those who visit monthly. (While the findings apply to the heritage landscape as a whole, data constraints mean we cannot say with confidence whether the same conclusions hold for archaeological sites specifically, which are considered a subset of this landscape.)
The research studies 2 archaeology sites in detail and found archaeology delivers significant non-market value. Visitors to Avebury (a free to access site) showed a consumer surplus, which is the additional benefit derived above what they paid, of £3.91 per person. Visitors to Wroxeter revealed a consumer surplus 26% higher than the ticket price for the site. This means archaeological sites provide wellbeing, economic and cultural benefits to visitors, far beyond their market value.
Volunteering creates measurable wellbeing gain for the volunteers themselves, by improving their physical and mental health. Studies have reported wellbeing impact up to £1,200 for weekly volunteers (Lawton et al., 2021). Furthermore, volunteers are a valuable resource for many organisations. This dual benefit of volunteering can be monetised to find the value added by volunteers. For instance, using a set of assumptions, we estimated Londoners contribute approximately £24.7 million to the London economy through archaeology volunteering.
Living near historic assets boosts quality of life
People living in areas with high density of archaeology (proxied by archaeological excavations) were seen to have significantly higher wellbeing benefits.
Why it matters?
England’s archaeological heritage holds immense value for society — value that extends well beyond what any ticket price or visitor number can capture. This study demonstrates that with the right valuation tools, we can better make the case for protecting and supporting England’s archaeology. By applying a suite of Treasury-approved economic methods to archaeology for the first time, this study offers a rigorous and replicable way to articulate the public value of archaeological sector. These findings can be used to support investment decisions and business cases, especially helping demonstrate the non-market benefits of archaeology to the policy makers and funders for the sector.
To read the full report go to the following link here
