With everyone carrying a camera in their pocket, pretty much anyone can post some pictures to Instagram or flickr and fancy themselves as a bit of a photographer.
But while taking an epic holiday sunset pic and waiting for your friends and family to give you the digital thumbs up is easy enough, making the jump from amateur snapper to professional photographer takes more skill than slapping on a filter and adding a hashtag or two.
So what skills are needed? To find out we trawled through the Adzuna database of over 1 million live job vacancies to see what employers were looking for.
Soft Skills or Technical Knowledge?
The good news for people without extensive knowledge of editing software or a formal qualification in photography is that the employers trying to fill 6,608 photography roles are more likely to request soft-skills and a good attitude than technical expertise. (At the time of writing, familiarity with Instagram was not a requirement on any job ad).
‘Communication’ skills were at the top of the list, with three in five job ads wanting candidates that would find it easy putting their subjects at ease or directing a team to help set up the perfect picture. ‘Creativity’, ‘passion’, and ‘drive’ were also key skills wanted by photography employers, each appearing in almost a third of ads (although despite the desire for ‘creativity’ in candidates, only 19% of job ads explicitly requested to see a portfolio).
On the other hand only one in 10 ads mentioned ‘editing’ or ‘adobe’, and less than a third of ads mentioned ‘photoshop’ or ‘software’. Specific skills around ‘lighting’ (2.6%), ‘art direction’ (1.7%) and ‘composition’ (0.8%) were mentioned even less.
That doesn’t mean studying photography isn’t useful however, with 6% of ads looking for a photography graduate. Those with a degree in marketing might also find themselves at an advantage, with over 40% of jobs looking for a candidate with experience in this area. Meanwhile there’s also good news for those that haven’t been formally taught and are looking for their first professional photography job, with almost 1 in 20 job ads after an apprentice.
| Skill | % of Ads Mentioning Skill |
| Communication | 61.9% |
| Marketing | 41.1% |
| Creativity | 29.8% |
| Passion | 23.7% |
| Drive | 22.0% |
| Technical | 20.8% |
| Relationship | 17.1% |
| Flexible | 17.0% |
| Software | 12.9% |
| Photoshop | 12.6% |
| Enthusiastic | 11.5% |
| Adobe | 10.7% |
| Editing | 10.6% |
| Collaborative | 7.4% |
| Graphic Design | 7.3% |
| Time Management | 6.7% |
| Interpersonal | 6.3% |
| Graduate | 5.8% |
| Lighting | 2.6% |
| Art Direction | 1.7% |
| Composition | 0.8% |
Where are the jobs?
While almost a third of the photography jobs were listed in London – aspiring professional photographers looking for employment don’t necessarily need to move to the capital – there are opportunities in all parts of the country.
Click on the region to be taken directly to a selection of photographer or photography jobs in that area.
| Region | % of Photography Jobs |
| London | 32.8% |
| South East England | 17.9% |
| Eastern England | 10.9% |
| West Midlands | 7.4% |
| North West England | 7.1% |
| East Midlands | 6.7% |
| South West England | 6.5% |
| Yorkshire and the Humberside | 4.7% |
| North East England | 2.6% |
| Scotland | 1.9% |
| Wales | 1.4% |
| Northern Ireland | 0.2% |
About this blog post –
We took a snapshot of the 1 million plus job ads in our and looked for vacancies with ‘photographer’ or ‘photography’ in them. At the time of our study 410 roles listed these terms in the title, while 6,608 mentioned them in the title or description of the job ad – the numbers in this blog post refer to these 6,608 job ads.