The Top 10 European Cities For Creatives To Visit

The National Gallery has been highlighted amongst the best cultural landmarks to visit in London. Not only that, London has been crowned Europe’s best creative city to visit this summer.

With searches for ‘summer holidays Europe’ boasting a global search volume of 250 searches, Adobe Express analysed factors such as universities and schools specialising in art & design, music and performing arts, as well as the number of art galleries, museums and theatres in each city, to reveal the best cities in Europe for creatives to visit this summer.

The Top 10 European Cities For Creatives To Visit

The full data-set of all 50 cities analysed can be found here

Ranking as Europe’s best city for budding creatives to visit, London boasts a final creativity score of 8.80 out of 10.With an abundance of art galleries (277) and theatres (256) to explore, the UK capital is a great city for budding creatives to seek that all important inspiration.

Home to globally renowned art galleries such as the National Gallery which is located in Trafalgar Square, this art gallery reportedly contains one of the largest collections of paintings, including those of Van Dyck and Van Gough. Free to the public to enjoy, the gallery is open 361 days of the year and is perfect for first time visitors or repeat visits.

Berlin, Germany, ranks in second position with a final score of 8.40 out of 10. The German capital is rich in culture, boasting 278 art galleries and 245 museums to explore.

No trip to Berlin can be complete without a trip to East Side Gallery, a mile long stretch of the Berlin Wall that is home to over 100 murals, slogans and graffiti artworks executed by a collective of Berlin artists. If art galleries are more your scene, why not try Berlin’s Contemporary Fine Arts gallery, which has been promoting idiosyncratic art from around the world since 1992.

Renowned as one of the cultural centres of Europe, Milan, Italy, ranks in third place with a final score of 8.12 out of 10.

With a variety of museums (233) and art galleries (107) to explore during your time in Milan, one of the most notable to visit is Brera Art Gallery which is home to some of the greatest masterpieces in Italian art, with tickets costing up to €15.00 per visit.

Comparatively, ranking as the least optionable city for budding creatives in Europe is Dundee. Despite being Scotland’s fourth-largest city, it scores a total score of 1.07 out of 10 –  home to just five art galleries and seven theatres.

Adobe Express shares their top tips for budding creatives to find the right city for them: “It’s no surprise that Europe is a dream destination for many creatives, whether you’re keen to explore the rich history, vibrant art movements or magical music scenes.

“When deciding which European city would be the most appropriate choice for you and the lifestyle you want to pursue, it’s important to bear in mind factors such as the cost of living, the language and the creative scene the city is capable of providing.

“Despite cities such as London ranking as the best cities for budding creatives, it’s also important to note that London is one of the most expensive cities in Europe but is also home to a world class art scene and prestigious education prospects.

“Berlin on the other hand, is a relatively affordable city boasting a thriving nightlife scene and a continuous magnet for artists, musicians and creatives.”

Methodology & Notes to Editor.

1. Adobe Express sought to analyse which cities/towns across Europe are the best for aspiring artists/creatives. To do so, a multi-variate index was created analysing factors across education in the arts, cost of living and artistic presence in the city.

2. To create a seedlist of prominent art cities, the top 50 cities represented on the QS Rankings in Europe for Art and Design 2024 were considered.

   1. To ensure fairness in cities being compared, any city below 100,000 population was excluded from the study.

3. Each city was analysed for the number of top institutions in the top rankings (as ranked by QS world rankings) in Europe for Art and Design, Music, Performing Arts and History of Art.

   1. The cost of education tuition costs was also investigated. The average tuition cost by country for a UK/non EU national was considered as a proxy of cost in order to compare across the cities.

4. The number of art galleries, museums and theatres were collected for each city in the study from OSM. Where data was scarce or not available through OSM, it was augmented using data from a leading travel review website.

   1. As OSM is a crowd sourced project with a complex tagging scheme, there is potential for introduction of unintentional errors and intentional errors. Contributors can use its tools to monitor, review and fix errors, so levels of completeness vary.

   2. Whilst the data has been checked thoroughly and cross referenced with other sources, total numbers are challenging to obtain exactly, thus the general differences between cities should be considered and the numbers as good estimates.

5. Cost of Living per city for a single person was obtained from Expatistan.

   1. Note, some cities may be less accurate due to less available data. The actual numbers should be used as a guide of perceived cost of living to compare between cities.

   2. For cities that were not available on Expatistan, the cost of living was computed from the average of other cities in the same country as to not exclude them from the ranking.

6. The average salary was compared across all cities using payscale.com, which is the largest repository of salary data.

7. Due to the wide range of jobs in the creative industries, computing a single average of salary in the arts was not reliable, so overall salary was computed to compare. In general, it can be assumed that salaries in the arts would scale in line with the average salary overall.

8. A weighted percentranking was computed across all variables with a higher weight given to institutions in the arts, galleries, museums and theatres to find the best city for budding creatives.

9. This data is accurate as of May 2024, but subject to change.

Feature Photo by Lucas Davies on Unsplash