How To Become A Professional UK Voice Artist.
The UK Voiceover Industry, in fact the whole World of Voiceover has seen a massive ingress of new and aspiring talent since 2020. The lifestyle changes forced upon everyone by Covid which led to new working patterns, encouraged people to reflect on work-life balance. This led to many people seeking opportunities to work from home and at first glance, Voiceover Work seems to make sense.
The Rise Of The Professional Home Recording Studio
Historically, Voice Artists almost exclusively recorded narrations in established studios, often travelling to places like London to complete a session before returning home.
It was a niche market, popular with actors between jobs and a few dedicated and experienced professional voice actors.
Easy Access To Voiceover Technology
Over the past 20 years though the development of studio technology has made it much more accessible for people without audio engineering degrees and this sin’t exclusive to VoiceOver.
The development of Digital Audio Workstations and the reduced costs of equipment make the art of creating broadcast quality voice audio and music production achievable in home based studios.
There’s also a wealth of available resources to train the skills needed to pass muster via the internet. So the entry level bar is that much lower than it used to be, which also means that standards of quality are wildly varied.
Is The UK Voice Artist Market Saturated ?
In a word ‘yes’, but it’s worth exploring why. The market is saturated with new and aspiring Voiceovers, looking to carve out a career in a highly competitive field. However only a small percentage make a healthy living in the field due to several factors:
Lack of coaching or training
Unrealistic Expectations Of The Industry
Not Having A Niche
Varying Quality Of Audio Production
Varying Quality of Performance Technique
How To Build A Successful Voiceover Business
If you’re an aspiring UK Voice Artist, here’s my suggested approach to getting into UK Voiceover:
Develop Voiceover Skills On Pay To Play Sites
There are platforms like Upwork, Fiverr and Freelancer where there is still plenty of entry level work to be found. The pay is commensurate with what you’d expect from a commodity service where there is a lot of competition. However, it’s a good way to build a catalogue of reviews, gain experience and increase your confidence in Voice over.
When To Pivot From Voice Over Pay To Play Sites ?
One of the challenges with using these platforms is breaking out from them once you’ve established yourself. It’s a model thats built firmly on reputation and whilst you can earn reasonable amounts on them, it’s a merciless cycle that leads to burn out if you stay too long.
How many low paying jobs are you willing to do each Month ? It’s exhausting and there’s a point where you need to stop thrashing yourself for hundreds of hours, serving clients with small budgets.
Being a successful UK Voice Over requires the building of your reputation so that clients return time after time. If you have a large number of clients with low budgets then it can be difficult to scale your business. At some point you’ll need to be charging more and how you approach that is the key to scaling the business.
You’ll know from the feedback you’re getting when it’s the right time to pivot from Pay to Play Sites. It’s not always the case, but it’s often the people that want to pay the least that want the most !
Use Voiceover Casting Sites
There are many great casting sites for Voice Artists, such as Voices and Voice123 for instance. Bear in mind that many are subscription based and access to auditions can be based on an algorithm.
There are tiered pricing structures in some but it doesn’t follow that if you pay the top tier subscription then you’re going to land more jobs. The competition is fierce so before you shell out lots of money, just remember you’re auditioning alongside top talent.
Develop A Voiceover Niche
Most new and aspiring voiceovers are generalists. It’s important to specialise in order to stand out from the crowd and be the ‘go to’ person for a specific style, such as
‘British Accent Audiobook Narration‘. Approaching the business as a jack of all trades means diluting your developing expertise.
Get Professional Voice Coaching
It is possible to be successful as a Voice Artist without formal training as an actor, but it’s naive to think that no training is required. It takes years to develop the experience needed to be successful, but relying on trial and error is a sure way to burn out before long.
Take Voiceover Marketing Seriously
Many Voice Artists don’t appreciate when they start out the importance of marketing your professional services. I would say that 80% of the job of a professional voice artist is marketing, which is the same for most creative freelance professionals.
Have A Professional Voiceover Website
It’s essential to have a shop window for your services, which show-cases you in the best possible light. Remember though that ‘build it and they will come’ is not a successful approach and it’s just a tool in the marketing box, albeit an important one.
Charge Market Rates
It is hard to justify market rates when starting out, due to a lack of experience, quality and credible reviews to back up your pitches. So I will qualify this by saying ‘charge market rates when you offer professional quality work’.
You achieve that by getting some coaching, gaining experience, getting feedback and constantly developing your skills. Once you have the quality down though, it’s essential for the whole industry that we don’t under-mine ourselves and there are useful resources out there to help us understand what the market rates are.
Useful Rate Guides For Voice Artists
A resource that focusses primarily on the US Market and is useful as a UK Voice Artist when working with US based clients.
Gravy For The Brain Rate Guide
The go to rate guide for UK Voiceover.
Is AI a Threat To Quality Voice Artists
In a sense ‘yes’ in that much of the entry level work is being taken up by AI Voice. There isn’t perhaps the demand for Telephone Voice Prompts that there once was. The word to emphasise here though is ‘Quality’
It’s also not about one client being more discerning than another. Video Producers, Authors, Audioguide Creators and Commercial Ad Houses invest heavily with time and money to develop marketable products.
Even if AI Voice develops to the level where it becomes indistinguishable from Human Voice (no where near there yet), is the possibility of any doubt worth jeopardising the credibility of a production ?
I don’t believe so and thats why 90% of the work I audition for as a UK Voice Artist specifies ‘no AI Voice’. I cover this in more depth here.
Is Voiceover Still A Good Career ?
Breaking into the Voiceover Industry has always been challenging as you’re up against some very talented competition. I’m going to be candid here and say that if you are at the foot of the mountain right now though, just starting out in Voiceover the playing field is considerably more challenging than at any time in history.
The entry level is low, so the competition as a new Voiceover is high and it is the entry level where AI is the greatest threat right now.
To be successful these days means having something unique. This can be a unique voice, a unique service offer or a deep specialisation in which you excel. If you can do this then you’ve got a chance.
Conclusion: Success As A UK Voice Artist Is A Long Game
It will be interesting to see if the trend of new aspiring voiceovers continues to rise, or whether the impact of AI on entry level work and the challenges of grinding out an existence with low paying work will force many to re-consider the profession.
It is estimated that by 2027, Freelancers will make up the majority of the workforce ‘Genius – Workforce Statistics‘. Just think how many creatives will be competing for work.
That said, even when taking AI into account, the volume of content being created each year is also increasing at a surprising rate.
If you’re thinking of getting into Voiceover because you’re hopeful of quick success, then you will be disappointed.
Its a career thats built on reputation, credibility and reliability over many years and those that are most successful are the ones that are able to offer something unique, can balance people skills with marketing, savvy business acumen and not a small sprinkling of talent.
My name is James and I’m an experienced UK Voice Artist. I’ve narrated over 50 audiobooks and I’ve served clients around the World with Quality British Voiceover for 7 years as a full time professional, working from a dedicated studio in Hampshire UK. My approach is to work with clients to elevate their creative project to where they need it to be.
Reach out if you’d like to talk about a video, audioguide, audiobook or anything that needs broadcast quality VoiceOver and I’ll be happy to help.
Best regards
James
