Engaged with the arts Connectivity

This indicator shows the percentage of adults who reported engaging with the arts physically (attended an event or participated in an activity in person) in the last 12 months, in England, for the financial year ending 2026.

Data source: Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport(opens in a new tab) published 31 July 2026

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  • England

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2025-26
2025-26

Note: This indicator only includes data for 2025-26.

Map

Engaged with the arts

Percentage of adults who reported engaging with the arts physically in the last 12 months, lower tier/unitary authorities, 2025-26

Source: Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport(link opens in a new tab)

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Engaged with the arts

Percentage of adults who reported engaging with the arts physically in the last 12 months, lower tier/unitary authorities, 2025-26

Source: Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport(link opens in a new tab)

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Table

Engaged with the arts

Percentage of adults who reported engaging with the arts physically in the last 12 months, lower tier/unitary authorities, 2025-26

Source: Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport(link opens in a new tab)

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Interpretation

Examples of physical arts engagement include reading, performing music, or going to a comedy event. The full list of qualifying activities and events asked of respondents can be found in Annex E of the data source.

Confidence intervals can be displayed on the bar chart by selecting the ‘Options’ button. These help show that differences between similarly ranked geographies may not be statistically significant.

The Community and Engagement Survey (CES) is a survey of people aged 16 and over in England, designed to explore how people across England engage with their community and with culture, media and live sport. In October 2025, the Community and Engagement Survey replaced DCMS’ Participation Survey and Community Life Survey.

The data has been weighted to compensate for differences in both sampling probability and response probability. Please see the weighting methodology for further details.

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Get the data

You can download this dataset in an XLSX, CSV or CSVW format, or download all available datasets in an XLSX or JSON-Stat format.

The original source data for this indicator can be found on the following page: Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport(opens in a new tab).

Information on the strengths and limitations of the Explore Local Statistics service and methods used is available in the quality and methodology information (QMI) report.

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Other indicators

Engaged with the arts is one of 109 local indicators on the Explore local statistics service. See the full list of local indicators.

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