SaCSA has expressions of interest open for its Scoping Creative Futures project, and the music sector is on the list
Service and Creative Skills Australia has expressions of interest open for Scoping Creative Futures: Career Journey Mapping, a national workforce planning project looking at how people actually build careers in the creative industries. Music is one of six sectors in scope, and SaCSA wants to hear from people at every stage of their working life.
The project is collecting real career journeys rather than assumed ones. The aim is to map how someone gets from an early gig to running a tour or managing an artist, and to work out where the pathways break down along the way. That covers career progression, skills development and the workforce challenges that come with working in music.
For the music sector, SaCSA has flagged First Nations organisation management, festival creative production, tour and road management, artist management and music composition. The wider project also covers performing arts, visual arts, craft and design, writing and publishing, digital games and screen, so anyone whose work crosses between music and the rest of the sector is still relevant.
Taking part means a one on one online interview of roughly 45 to 60 minutes, an online validation workshop with peers of roughly 60 to 90 minutes, or both. SaCSA has been upfront that it does not pay honorariums for research participation, so this is time given rather than paid work.
The project builds on SaCSA’s earlier Creative Workforce Scoping Study, which identified workforce shortages, skills gaps and problems with career progression across the arts and creative industries. Anyone who has tried to hire an experienced production manager or fill a touring crew recently will recognise the findings. This next stage is about understanding why those gaps exist and what a genuine pathway into those roles looks like.
For the live music business, workforce data is what underpins the case for training investment, skills funding and the structural support the sector has been asking for. When the evidence base is thin, live music gets overlooked in favour of industries that can point to hard numbers. A 45 minute conversation is a small contribution to fixing that.
Expressions of interest are still open. SaCSA is the Jobs and Skills Council covering arts, culture and creative industries, alongside retail, personal services, and tourism and hospitality.
