How to start a museum in the UK: 10 key steps for creating an engaging space

We love museums in Britain. According to recent data, 48% of UK adults visit museums at least once a year, with 35% visiting twice or more. Our country is packed with incredible museums, from the British Museum and Natural History Museum in London to the many niche offerings up and down the UK.

And the appetite of the Great British public means there’s always room for more. If you’re researching how to start a museum in the UK, exploring how to start a private museum, or thinking about launching a museum business, here we’ll look at the best ways to approach it. Discover our 10 steps to start a museum, to help you create a cultural space that’s engaging, sustainable and successful.

10 steps to start a successful museum

Before you start developing your museum, dive into our top 10 tips. They should help you build a space that engages your audience and keeps them coming back.

1. Define why you want to start a museum

Before you start thinking about funding your museum or looking at potential locations, you need to define why it is that you’d like to start a museum and what you’re hoping to achieve.

A great starting point is to consider the museum's story or history you’d like to share with visitors. Ask yourself who your audience will be, why your museum should be opened, and what will make people come through your doors.

These points are incredibly important if you’re planning to open a history museum, for example. A strong focus on a specific subject matter, such as local industry or wartime stories, is far more engaging than a random assortment of items.

2. Choose your museum type

The structure, funding, and legal setup you need for your museum will vary depending on what you’re hoping to create.

Private museum

A private museum is usually owned by an individual, a family, or a private trust and built around a personal collection. Private museums can be for-profit or not-for-profit, with one of the main challenges being balancing your vision with public accessibility.

It’s also important to consider whether you want your private museum to be open year-round or by appointment only. This will impact staffing, insurance and compliance.

History museum

History museums typically focus on local, national or thematic history. A strong history museum needs to offer something that people haven’t seen before. Or provide some unique insight into a specific time in history. A great example of this is the industrial exhibits at the Manchester Science and Industry Museum that tell a unique story of the Industrial Revolution in the city.

When setting up a history museum, you’ll likely need to work with archives, councils, and heritage organisations to gather the information you need. Excellent research and curation standards are key, too.

A good history museum requires high levels of credibility and accuracy, so it can be helpful to partner with historians or local heritage groups early on.

Specialist museum

A specialist museum focuses on a specific niche, such as transport, military, pop culture, film, science or technology. A great example of this is the Museum of Magic, Fortune-telling & Witchcraft in Edinburgh. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea and may not attract the same level of tourists as some of the other museums in the city, but it holds many treasures for its niche audience.

One of the biggest obstacles with a niche museum is attracting visitors, especially in the beginning. Building a community around your niche and engaging with existing online communities are great ways to start. Your social media content will likely be integral to generating a buzz before you open and to keeping the conversation going with your community.

Building a network and community before you set up your space should also help with your fundraising efforts.

Interactive museum

An interactive museum focuses on hands-on learning and immersion. This type of museum is usually popular with families and schools, as they often include digital or sensory exhibits. We love Camera Obscura & World of Illusions in Edinburgh and the Twist Museum in London.

Interactive museums can have higher setup and maintenance costs than other options. But they often perform well commercially, as people are likely to visit more than once. Getting the balance right will hopefully help you build a successful space.

3. Find the right building

When starting a museum business, the building itself will be one of your highest costs.

Traditional options include converted heritage buildings (such as barns and churches), high-street retail spaces, and purpose-built museum sites. More unique choices include shipping containers, pop-up or touring exhibitions, and shared cultural spaces with galleries or libraries.

You don’t necessarily need a permanent building to start a museum. Many successful museums began as temporary exhibitions or digital-first projects before committing to a physical space.

4. Consider your location strategy

When choosing a location for your new museum, it’s important to consider options with high footfall that complement what you’re trying to achieve while meeting any requirements you have.

High-footfall areas, like city centres and tourist destinations, are visible to many and are likely to welcome spontaneous visits as people pass by. However, these spaces often come with high rental costs and intense competition, so you’ll need to make sure your museum really stands out if you want to draw people in.

Destination museums in rural or niche locations offer lower costs and a unique identity, but you’ll need to give people a reason to travel to visit. Community-based locations in local towns or suburbs are another possibility and typically receive strong local support. However, it can be difficult to encourage tourist traffic.

A smaller museum with strong local engagement can perform better than a larger one with limited community support, so it’s important to build a loyal audience first.

5. Look into the legal and structural setup

UK museums will usually fall under one of the following structures:

• Charity – this is the most common option for public museums
• Community Interest Company (CIC)
• Private limited company – for-profit model

You’ll also need to think about your governance model and consider whether you want a formal board, an advisory committee, or a project-based collective.

You may also want to consider:

• Collections insurance
• Public Liability insurance
• Loan agreements for borrowed items
• Policies for conservation and handling

Accreditation from Arts Council England can boost credibility, but this requires meeting strict standards.

6. Build and manage your collection

Your collection is your museum’s main asset, so it’s important to consider:

• Ownership vs loaned items
• Storage and conservation conditions
• Cataloguing systems
• Ethical sourcing

If possible, try not to display all of your items at once, as rotating exhibits help to keep content fresh and encourage people to return.

7. Create an experience

Many museum visitors enjoy an experience that offers more than simply looking at items in glass cases. When starting a museum, you should think about:

• Telling a story through your exhibits and taking people on a clear journey with a beginning, middle, and end
• Interactive elements to bring the story to life – this can also be super helpful to engage with kids and families
• Accessibility – it’s key to making it accessible for all. This may impact your building considerations
• Emotional impact – what do you want people to feel when they first step through the doors, and once they leave the museum?

Focus on creating something that visitors will remember a week later and want to tell their friends about.

8. Develop a strategy for funding and revenue

While bringing in an income may not be the main reason you’re thinking about starting a museum, you’ll need multiple income streams to ensure your idea is sustainable. These could include:

• Ticket sales
• Grants and funding bodies
• Donations and memberships
• Gift shop and merchandise
• Events and venue hire
• Educational workshops

Museums that rely on a single source of income often struggle. Try to create several revenue streams to keep the money coming in from a range of different sources. Leaning on experts in the field for your educational workshops can be an important way to engage your potential audience early on. As you can hold unique events in the museum space when you first open.

How you promote these workshops and events will be integral to your early strategy.

9. Build an audience in advance

Don’t wait until opening day to start building your museum's audience. You’ll want to create anticipation well before you launch.

You can begin to build an audience early on with:

• Social media storytelling
• Behind-the-scenes content
• Local partnerships
• Community events or talks

This is an incredibly important time to showcase what your museum means to your audience. By engaging with your potential audience at this early stage, you can also give them a voice in shaping your museum. If people feel engaged with the space before it even opens, they will hopefully become advocates after visiting your museum.

10. Get your staffing and skills right

Every museum needs a mix of skills to be successful, for example:

• Curatorial – research and collections
• Operations – tickets and logistics
• Marketing and outreach
• Education and programming

If you’re in the very early stages and want to enhance your own skills in the area, or you’re interested in how to start a museum career, you can begin with:

• Volunteering at local museums
• Studying museum studies, heritage, or history
• Building experience in archives or galleries

Museum careers require a variety of skills, from digital and storytelling to audience engagement, and these are just as important as academic knowledge.

Developing your own museum

Learning how to start a museum in the UK requires a vision, sustainability, relevance and logistics.

Whether you’re planning to start a private museum built on your own collection, a history museum telling local stories, or a museum business with commercial goals, it’s important to ensure your space connects with your audience, tells engaging stories, and remains sustainable over time.

Specialist museum insurance through Ripe

Looking to start your own museum? Find out more about museum insurance and get a quote online.