Crafts Inventory and Red List FAQs

The Heritage Crafts Inventory is a catalogue of living traditional crafts in the UK. It is a tool for celebrating, promoting and protecting the nation’s living craft heritage.

The Inventory goes beyond simple listing; it aims to recognise the diversity, cultural significance and living tradition inherent in UK crafts, acknowledging the makers, the challenges and issues facing the crafts, and where you can go to learn craft skills.

The Red List of Endangered Crafts is a subsection of the wider Heritage Crafts Inventory. It is a research-led classification system that identifies and assesses the crafts most at risk of disappearing from the UK.

The Red List categorises crafts into various degrees of risk (critically endangered, endangered, etc) based on a number of assessment criteria. Its primary purpose is to raise public and governmental awareness, prioritise funding and intervention efforts, and mobilise action to promote and safeguard these skills.

The Craft Inventory and the Red List of Endangered Crafts are resources freely available for anyone to use. Please let us know if you have used them and found them useful, it helps us to demonstrate the value and impact of our work.

Finding suppliers and trainers – The inventory acts as a targeted directory for finding master craftspeople, active workshops, and specialised suppliers whose materials or expertise are not easily found in mainstream trade networks.

Craft sector research – Researchers, historians, and policymakers can track which crafts are currently critically endangered, endangered, or viable, establishing clear baseline data on skill retention. It reveals specific systemic threats to particular crafts such as supply chain disruptions (e.g., lack of specialised raw materials), an aging demographic of makers, or loss of institutional support.

Source of evidence for funding applications and projects – Applicants to funding bodies (such as the National Lottery Heritage Fund or private charitable trusts) can cite official Red List classifications to demonstrate the urgency and necessity of their project. It validates that a proposed intervention (e.g., funding a trainee or digitising historical techniques) addresses a recognized risk of extinction rather than just a commercial preference.

Publicity – Inclusion on the Red List generates media interest, shedding light on rare heritage skills that would otherwise remain hidden from the public eye. Increased exposure often leads to direct commissions, product sales, and course sign-ups for practicing artisans, giving vulnerable crafts a financial lifeline.

Advocacy – The list provides data to lobby government departments, educational bodies, and heritage agencies for better policy support, tax reliefs, or formal educational accreditations. It elevates traditional craftsmanship from simple hobbies or commercial manufacturing to recognised intangible cultural heritage that warrants national protection and investment.

Our assessment process for both the Inventory and the Red List is designed to be comprehensive, inclusive and evidence-based.

Qualitative and quantitative research

We employ a mixed-methods approach.

• Quantitative research – we make contact with practitioners and organisations (our ‘reviewers’), counting the number of makers, assessing average age and tracking formal training provision.
• Qualitative research – we talk to master craftspeople and experts to understand the nuances of skill transmission and cultural significance.
• Events – We also hold events, such as craft specific symposiums and online meetings to consult with craftspeople and organisations.
• Surveys and sector data – Some groups and organisations will also carry out their own survey work to collect both qualitative and quantitative data, or will have data that we can draw upon.

Grassroots approach: We prioritise input from the grassroots level. Information about a craft’s viability is often gathered directly from the makers, organisations and community groups who embody the skills. This ensures our assessment reflects local realities, regional variations, and the unique cultural contexts of the craft practices.

Informed by the sector – makers and their representative organisations: The entire process is collaborative. We work closely with individual makers, guilds, associations and heritage bodies across the UK. This sector-led approach ensures the Red List is accurate, respected and directly relevant to the needs of the craft community.

We publish the updated list every two years with a research period for six months ahead of the publication date.

During the research period we do the following:

• Make email contact with our database of volunteer reviewers. These are usually crafts practitioners, sector organisations and craft experts
• Revise and update our data and craft information to assess for any changes
• Carry out research and data collection for new crafts added to the list
• Review the data and present it to Red List Panel for approvals and reclassifications

These are the questions that we ask:

• Does it require a high degree of hand skill/knowledge at the point of production?
• Does it involve the use or processing of raw materials or traditional craft supplies? e.g. not using commercially produced ‘kits’ or the assembly of premade components
• Does it fall within one or more of the categories listed below?
• Has it been practised for two or more generations, either in the UK or in its place/community/group of origin?

The following will also be considered when making a decision:

• Is it a sub-craft or closely allied craft to an existing inventory craft?
• Is it culturally significant or distinctive to a particular group or community?
• Is it endangered?

Craft categories

• Textiles
• Wood
• Ceramics
• Metal
• Stone
• Glass
• Paper
• Printing
• Building crafts
• Basketry
• Musical Instruments
• Floristry
• Woodland and coppice crafts
• Heritage engineering – e.g. clock making, bicycle making
• Land based – e.g. walling, hedging, coppicing
• Skilled manufacturing /trades – e.g. tool making, industrial ceramics
• Restoration and repair (where linked to craft skills)
• Sports equipment
• Decorative surfaces – e.g. sign painting, gilding, lacquerwork
• Production of materials to supply crafts – e.g. coppicing, pigment making, tanning

The following are currently considered to be out of scope of the Heritage Crafts Inventory and Red List of Endangered Crafts
Horticulture, agriculture and gardening
Food and culinary crafts
Cosmetics, soaps and fragrances
Crafts that rely heavily on commercially produced kits/components
Electrical or mechanical components (the making of complete mechanical objects are considered e.g. watch and clock making, scientific instruments).

A craft is deemed endangered by using a model that examines its long-term viability. The primary factors considered include:

• Number of practitioners: How many full-time or highly skilled makers remain in the UK. These can be people making an income from their craft or highly skilled amateur makers.
• Rate of change: The momentum or rate of change in numbers of practitioners. This could be increasing or decreasing.
• Average age: The average age of the practicing community, or an aging population without younger replacements is a key indicator of risk.
• Transmission and training: The availability of formal or informal training routes (e.g., apprenticeships, college courses) to pass the skill to the next generation.
• Infrastructure and viability: The availability of tools, raw materials, workshops, and sustainable economic markets for the craft products.
• Existential threats: There may be an internal or external threat that is affecting the long term viability of a craft. Examples could include: legislation around a material or practice is preventing it from happening, the raw materials are no longer available, or a key training route has been lost.
• Cultural value: The degree to which the craft is valued and supported by the surrounding community.

Professional makers (main income): People earning their main craft income from this craft (selling, commissions, conservation/ restoration and/or teaching). They don’t have to be formally accredited or a member of any professional body.

Professional makers (part-time or side line to main income): As above but as less than half of their income. This could include makers who practise an endangered craft as part of their wider practice but it constitutes the smaller part.

Trainees: People acquiring skills in order to become a professional in this craft, they probably have to work under supervision even if they are earning money while training. They don’t have to be carrying out a formal qualification or programme of learning.

Serious amateur makers: People whose knowledge and ability is at a level of the most skilled practitioners of this craft but they are not doing it as a substantial part of their income. They may also be retirees who still hold the skills.

Leisure makers and learners: People who do not intend to practice this craft professionally or at the highest level.

We have a research team at Heritage Crafts who carry out all the administration and consultation. The decisions on new additions and reclassifications are made by the Red List Review Panel which is made up of staff, trustees and craft sector experts.

We make our decisions in collaboration and consultation with the sector, and with the consent of the crafts practitioners who are represented. We respect the wishes of anyone who wishes to remain anonymous and of those who decline to participate in the research.

These terms are used across both the Inventory and the Red List assessments:

Categories:

• Extirpated or ‘extinct’ craft – A craft where there are no known practicing individuals remaining in the UK. The skill and knowledge associated with the craft are considered lost in a living context within the country (though documentation or international practice may exist).
• Critically endangered craft – A craft facing a high probability of becoming lost within the next generation. There are often very few practicing makers, training routes have disappeared, and the average age of practitioners is high. Without immediate and significant intervention, the craft will likely be lost.
• Endangered craft – A craft that has significant challenges to its long-term viability and sustainability. While more numerous than critically endangered crafts, issues exist regarding training provision, insufficient market demand, or lack of recruitment of younger practitioners.

Designations:

• Craft for cultural safeguarding – A craft that is being actively used or revived as a method of preserving and maintaining a broader element of cultural heritage, often in response to community identity, needs, displacement, or cultural loss.
• Culturally distinctive craft – A craft whose skills, techniques, materials, or products are unique or specific to a particular community, region, or cultural identity within the UK. This highlights crafts important for specific local heritage, such as regional textile patterns. They may or may not be on the Red List.
• Resurgent craft – A craft that is or has been listed as Endangered or Critically Endangered, but has since shown measurable and sustained positive growth in the number of practitioners, training provision, and economic viability, suggesting it is successfully moving towards long-term sustainability. They may or may not be on the Red List.

We are updating and adding entries all the time and we would love to hear from you.

Fill in our online data collection form here.

We rely on the knowledge and passion of the craft community to keep our data accurate. If you have information about a craft on the Inventory, wish to nominate a craft for inclusion, or have evidence regarding the viability of a Red List craft, please contact our research team via the Heritage Crafts contact page.

Our assessment process is intentionally collaborative and sector-led. We understand that, given the regional variation and nuances of craft practice, disagreements may arise regarding classification or data. We can’t always resolve or mediate issues that arise between practitioners or organisations and there may always be differences of opinion.

If you have concerns about a Red List classification or feel you were not consulted, please follow these steps:

• Gather evidence: Collect objective, evidence-based data (e.g., number of practitioners, new training courses, market changes) that directly challenges the existing classification.
• Get in touch: Contact our research team via the Heritage Crafts contact page, clearly stating the specific craft, the classification you dispute, and the supporting evidence.
• Review process: Your evidence will be reviewed by the Red List Panel, which includes independent experts.

Heritage Crafts runs several programmes specifically designed to support makers, particularly those practicing endangered crafts. Support mechanisms include:

• Training bursaries: Funding for apprenticeships and skills development.
• Endangered Craft Fund: Targeted funding for practitioners of endangered crafts

The most effective way to safeguard these skills is through direct support and engagement:

1. Buy handmade: Purchase products directly from practicing craftspeople.
2. Learn a skill: Take a class or seek an apprenticeship to help with skill transmission.
3. Spread awareness: Share information about the Red List and its importance with your networks.
4. Volunteer or donate: Support craft guilds, associations, and organisations like Heritage Crafts.