Overview
Boulder's creative economy in 2025 remained generally stable, with a variety of cultural institutions contributing to the city's broader economic landscape. Boulder continues to outperform national averages across creative industry indicators, underscoring its position as a cultural hub and the creative sector's role as a key driver of innovation and quality of life. This report analyzes creative employment within the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan (BVCP) boundary, which covers the city and nearby areas. It uses NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) based W-2 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. The nonprofit data comes from IRS filings of Form 990.
Key Takeaways
- Boulder maintains a creative employment concentration nearly three times the national average, reinforcing its identity as a national leader in arts-based economic vitality.
- The Performance Arts sector dominates employment but faces low wage levels, suggesting both cultural richness and financial vulnerability.
- Higher-wage creative fields such as marketing, publishing, and architecture contribute significantly to total earnings.
- Employment softened across most creative categories between 2023 and 2025, consistent with mixed results among peer cities and a small statewide decline in overall QCEW employment between 2024 and 2025. Within Boulder city limits, however, the broad Arts, Entertainment and Recreation sector grew 5% between 2024 and 2025, one of only a few industries citywide to add jobs.
- Creative work pays well below the citywide average: $47,704 across creative categories versus $115,081 across all Boulder employers, underscoring the affordability challenge facing artists and creative workers.
- The nonprofit creative sector remains a cornerstone of Boulder's cultural life, with strong representation across music, visual arts, and education.
Key Figures for 2025
- 6,220 creative industry jobs
- Location quotient of 2.9, indicating a concentration of creative employment nearly three times the U.S. average
- $296.7 million in total creative industry earnings
- $36.7 million in nonprofit arts revenues across 47 organizations (2024, the most recent comprehensive data available)
Employment Trends
Creative employment in Boulder remained concentrated in a few dominant categories:
- Performance Arts led employment with 2,185 jobs and a location quotient of 7.7, meaning this field is nearly eight times more concentrated than the national average.
- Architecture (726 jobs, LQ 3.8) and Writing, Publishing, and Journalism (1,000 jobs, LQ 2.4) are particularly concentrated in Boulder, employing far more people per capita than the national average.
- Six of the nine categories assessed had a concentration above the national average. Radio, Music, and Media Networks and Artisan Manufacturing (LQ 1.0) aligned with national averages, while Photography and Printing (LQ 0.6) fell below.
From 2023 to 2025, total creative employment declined from 7,054 to 6,220 jobs, a decrease of about 12%, with a roughly 6% decline between 2024 and 2025. This pattern is not unique to Boulder. Among the cities examined, results were a mixed bag: some saw modest year-over-year gains while others had losses. The state as a whole, across all industries, saw a small decline in QCEW employment between 2024 and 2025.
Citywide Economic Context
A separate analysis by the CU Boulder Business Research Division, based on Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE) Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages data, offers context on Boulder's broader economy. That analysis covers calendar year 2025 and employers located within Boulder city limits (a different boundary than the BVCP boundary used in this report), and excludes self-employed individuals unless they report employment and wages to the CDLE.
- An estimated 7,945 employers in the city of Boulder employ a total of 91,990 employees, with average annual wages of $115,081.
- Between 2024 and 2025, the number of employers in the city decreased by 1%, total employment increased by nearly 4%, and average annual wages decreased by nearly 3%.
- While most industries experienced a decrease in employment between 2024 and 2025, a few remained mostly unchanged or grew. Arts, Entertainment and Recreation was among the industries that grew, at 5%, alongside Transportation and Warehousing (20%), Health Care (1%), and Finance and Insurance (1%).
- Arts, Entertainment and Recreation had the lowest average annual wages of any broad industry in the city, at $30,624. Wage data includes both full-time and part-time workers.
The broad Arts, Entertainment and Recreation sector is defined differently than the creative industry categories in this report, and the two analyses use different geographic boundaries and data sources, so the figures are not directly comparable. Taken together, though, they tell a consistent story: arts and creative work is a distinctive and growing part of Boulder's economy, and it pays far less than the city's dominant industries.
Earnings and Wages
Creative workers in Boulder earned a total of $296.7 million in 2025, with notable disparities across subfields:
- Writing, Publishing, and Journalism generated the greatest total earnings ($71.5M), followed by Marketing and Advertising ($60.8M) and Architecture ($57.2M).
- Marketing and Advertising had the highest average wage ($105,913), followed by Radio, Music, and Media Networks ($97,208).
- Performance Arts, while the largest employer, had an average wage of only $11,148, highlighting the sector's continued income precarity.
- The average wage across all creative categories was $47,704, well below the citywide average of $115,081 reported in the CDLE-based analysis (noting the boundary and data source differences described above).
Nonprofit Impact
Nonprofit arts organizations generated $36.7 million in total revenue in 2024, the most recent year with comprehensive data available, underscoring their essential role in Boulder's creative fabric.
Top-earning nonprofit categories:
- Music – $7.0M
- Radio – $6.2M
- Visual Arts Organizations – $5.5M
- Arts Education – $3.1M
- Art Museums – $2.7M
Boulder hosted 12 nonprofit categories with five or more organizations, with the most numerous being Arts & Cultural Organizations – Multipurpose, followed by Music, Visual Arts, Arts Education, and Theatre groups.
Methodology
The report's findings derive primarily from:
- Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) for employment and earnings data, organized using NAICS codes aligned with Creative Vitality Suite categories, with some minor adjustments.
- IRS Form 990 filings for nonprofit financial data. The nine creative categories analyzed include Performance Arts, Writing/Publishing, Architecture, Marketing & Advertising, Radio/Music/Media, Film & Television, Artisan Manufacturing, Photography/Printing, and Other Creative Industries.
- Citywide economic context comes from a CU Boulder Business Research Division analysis of CDLE Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages data for employers within Boulder city limits, calendar year 2025.
Creative Industry Categories and Professions Included
The dataset covers a wide array of creative occupations, grouped into the following categories based on NAICS industry codes:
- Performance Arts – theater companies, dance companies, musical groups and artists, fine arts schools, and performing arts promoters (with and without facilities).
- Writing, Publishing, and Journalism – newspaper, periodical, and book publishers; greeting card and directory publishers; printing and bookbinding; libraries and archives; and booksellers.
- Architecture and Design – architectural, landscape architecture, drafting, and interior design services.
- Marketing and Advertising – advertising agencies, media buying, direct mail, and display advertising services.
- Radio, Music, and Media Networks – radio broadcasting, music publishers, recording studios, record production, sound recording, musical instrument makers and retailers, and streaming or digital content networks.
- Film and Television – motion picture and video production, post-production, distribution, and television broadcasting.
- Artisan Manufacturing – glass, metal, wood, pottery, and jewelry makers; custom woodwork and ceramics; and related retailers.
- Photography and Printing – portrait and commercial photography, screen printing, and photo finishing.
- Other Creative Industries – museums, galleries, historical sites, florists, art dealers, graphic design services, public relations, artist agents and managers, and independent artists, writers, and performers.
Together, these professions represent the portion of Boulder's creative workforce captured through NAICS classifications based on W-2 employment data, from artists and performers to architects, designers, and creative service professionals.
Conducted by:
BUSINESS RESEARCH DIVISION
Leeds School of Business
University of Colorado Boulder
420 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0420
Colorado.edu/business/brd
July 2026