The National Audit Office (NAO) has assessed the financial health of 15 museums in the UK and warns that the Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) may need to improve its oversight of the institutions.
The museums are the 15 that receive direct sponsorship and funding from the DCMS.
They are:
The British Museum; Museum of the Home; Horniman Museum; Imperial War Museums; National Gallery; National Museums Liverpool; National Portrait Gallery; Natural History Museum; Royal Armouries; Royal Museums Greenwich; Science Museum Group; Sir John Soane’s Museum; Tate Gallery Group; Victoria and Albert Museum, and The Wallace Collection.
This list includes seven of the 10 most visited free visitor attractions in England. In 2024-25 these institutions received grant-in-aid friends of £484 million. They hosted 42 million visitors. Employ 6,800 permanent staff. And their total net asset value is rated at just under £9 billion.
Whistlejacket by George Stubbs at the National Gallery, one of the 15 museums supported by the DCMS.
The NAO surveyed how these museums and galleries had managed the transition out of the extra funding regime set up during the Covid 19 Pandemic.
The NAO says: “We have made recommendations for DCMS to support improvements in its oversight of the sector, and recommendations for museums and galleries on how they manage future financial challenges. We have also identified good practice from museums and galleries’ approaches that may be useful to other museums and galleries and other sectors.”
Financially, NAO found a mixed picture for these institutions, with 53% saying they were in a worse financial position in August 2025 than three years ago. Five said they were now better off, and four of these had higher visitor numbers than before the Pandemic.
The report found:
Some of the museums and galleries had still required additional funding.
There are lower overall visitor numbers than before the pandemic.
Museums and galleries are trying to reduce cost increases. And, to generate extra income through commercial activities.
This self-generated income is more vulnerable to economic trends than grants.
As a result the DCMS may need to support them if their core purposes - protecting their collections and providing free access to them - are threatened.
NAO says: “DCMS must ensure that it has structures in place to identify early warning signs, should museums and galleries start struggling to manage their financial risks, so it can intervene early – potentially before additional funding is required.”
Alongside this improved financial oversight, NAO, says DCMS can provide more support to help these institutions protect against common threats like cyber attacks.
The full report The financial resilience of DCMS-sponsored museums and galleries is published at the NAO website.
