London promises queer creatives visibility, community and opportunity. But behind the rainbow branding and status and shine, lies a harsher reality: survival has become the real work.
Making it in London is hard for any creative person, but for queer creatives, that struggle is often layered by an extra, less visible burden: Identity.
It’s what led me to sit down with two queer creatives, one working in theatre and the other in music, to hear their stories and try to understand what that added burden really looks like.
They come from different backgrounds, work in different disciplines, and are at different stages of their lives. And yet, they found themselves coming back to the same questions: what does it cost, financially and emotionally, not just to survive in London’s creative industries, but to do so openly, as your true self?
London is sold as a city of opportunity. For queer creatives, it’s the place you come to be seen, to belong, to chase the version of your life that always felt just out of reach elsewhere. But beneath the rainbow flags and the bright lights of Soho’s nightlife is a reality that’s talked about far less: how difficult it is to keep going here.
The pressures are familiar. Sky-high rents. Short-term contracts and sporadic gigs, and an arts economy that quietly runs on sacrifice.
For those without financial safety nets, and people from working-class backgrounds, or carrying unresolved trauma, the effort of simply staying afloat can feel relentless.
That pressure shows up in different ways. For some, it’s burnout. For others, anxiety, depression, or addiction creeps in slowly and quietly.
In a city where success demands constant visibility, audition after audition, gig after gig, never slipping and never stopping. It’s not just talent London demands. but toughness.
The difficulty of making it in London isn’t new, but what is new is how much of a creative life is now spent simply staying afloat.
Talent still matters, but endurance matters more. The ability to absorb instability. To keep producing while unsure how next month’s rent will be paid.
I heard this again and again while speaking to Tom and Carl, both working at opposite ends of London’s cultural economy.
On paper, the careers of Tom Heath, 32, an independent musician, and Carl Mullaney, 43, a West End performer, look very different. In practice, they sound strikingly similar.
“There’s this assumption,” Tom told me, “that if you’ve got music on Spotify or you’re gigging regularly, you’re doing fine, but that’s just not how it works anymore. Most of the time, you’re just trying to stay afloat.”
Tom described his creative career as not built on instant breakthroughs but on years of persistence and compromise. After seven years in the capital, he said London offers artistic opportunity and community, but at a cost many creatives struggle to meet.
Rather than relying on a single full-time role, Tom supports his music through a combination of cover gigs, part-time data work and background acting, alongside writing and releasing his own songs.
This patchwork approach has become increasingly common across London’s creative industries, as rising living costs make it difficult for artists to survive on their craft alone.
According to industry research, a majority of UK artists now rely on multiple income streams, with fewer than one in five earning a living solely from their creative practice.
In London, where rents continue to rise faster than wages, the gap between visibility and viability is widening.
Carl knows that gap well. Nearly 25 years into a career that includes appearances in Chicago, Les Misérables and his current role in Titanique, which he describes as a life “closer to that of an athlete than an artist. I have to do eight performances a week,” he said.
The demand of the role requires constant care of the body, voice and mind, but despite the demands of the stage, he still relies on more than one job for survival.
“When the show finishes, that’s not the end of the day,” he said. “I’ll come off stage, change, and head straight to Freedom to host. Second jobs aren’t a choice. They’re how you make it work.”
From the outside, both men look successful. Tom releases music. Carl performs in the West End. But visible success has become a poor indicator of security in London’s creative industries.
Behind the scenes, both described lives shaped by fluctuating income, unpaid labour and constant self-promotion.
“You’re always selling yourself,” Carl said. “Even when you’ve been doing this for decades. Especially now, with self-tapes. You’re investing time, money, energy, and most of the time you don’t hear anything back.”
For musicians, visibility comes with its own pressures. While digital platforms have lowered the barriers to releasing music, visibility remains a challenge.
“Putting music out now is kind of too easy, but that isn’t a bad thing,” Tom said. “It means more art can be heard with fewer gatekeepers. The harder part is that we’re all trying to work with social media algorithms that are largely out of our control.”
Despite these pressures, music remains central to Tom’s identity. He began playing guitar at 14 and later studied popular music at university, though he said he never had a clear idea of what a career in music would look like.
“I didn’t really know what I wanted to do,” he said. “I just knew music was the thing I loved.”
His creative journey has also been shaped by his experience of coming out. Raised in a small town in Kent, Tom described hiding his sexuality throughout his teenage years and university. It was only after moving to London that he began to explore his identity openly.
“At the time, being gay didn’t feel like an option,” he said, explaining that fear and internalised pressure led him to suppress that part of himself for years.
The strain eventually took a physical toll, resulting in anxiety and panic attacks. Coming out, he said, was not a single moment but a gradual process that reshaped both his personal life and creative voice.
Those experiences now influence his songwriting. Earlier releases focused on adult relationships and dating, while newer material looks back to childhood, friendships and the unspoken feelings of growing up queer in environments where such stories were rarely visible.
“I’m trying to be more honest now,” Tom said. “Not just about being queer, but about being human.”
Carl’s experience reflects a different generation of silence. Raised in rural Lancashire under Section 28, queerness simply wasn’t discussed.
“There was no language,” he said. “No examples. No one you could point to and think, ‘That’s me’.” But one moment from childhood remained vivid: being cast as Joseph in a primary school nativity at eight years-old. “That’s when something clicked,” he says.
As his career developed, expectations around masculinity and sexuality became impossible to ignore. Early on, he was regularly told to “butch it up” in order to be cast, a confusing message in an industry dominated by gay men.
The contradiction wore him down slowly. In 2014, after leaving Les Misérables, Carl stepped away from full-time musical theatre following a series of disheartening auditions. “It wasn’t about giving up,” he said. “It was about surviving.”
“You learn not to get too comfortable,” he said. “That’s just the reality.”
Carol Mullaney
For nearly nine years, he focused on running an events and hosting business, while continuing cabaret and pantomime work. “I had to build a life outside theatre to be able to come back to it,” he said.
Carl’s return to the West End in 2023, after nearly a decade away, was life-changing. But even now, success doesn’t equal certainty. “You learn not to get too comfortable,” he said. “That’s just the reality.”
Across music and theatre, the pattern is consistent. Many queer creatives balance multiple jobs, manage unstable incomes, and constantly negotiate how openly they can exist in industries that still carry unspoken expectations.
“These pressures may soon intensify. Proposed changes to the Universal Credit income floor threaten to hit freelancers and self-employed workers hardest.”
Tom Heath at a recent gig [Simon J Webb]
“This is the bit people don’t see,” Tom said. “How close it all is. One bad month. One cancelled job.” Carl agreed: “People think being in the West End means you’re sorted. It doesn’t.”
London celebrates queer creativity loudly. Pride branding. Programming. Cultural prestige. But visibility without economic support is a hollow victory. Representation means little if the people behind it are exhausted, underpaid or quietly disappearing.
Both Tom and Carl spoke about the community as the reason they stay. Tom described queer audiences who show up consistently, who listen closely.
“It feels different,” he said. “Like people actually get what you’re saying.” Carl talked about kindness as currency. “People like working with nice people,” he said. “That stuff matters more than people realise.”
Community, though, cannot replace structure. Survival should not be the baseline requirement for making art.
London remains a place of possibility. It offers chosen family, freedom and visibility still denied elsewhere. But if queer creativity is to survive here in more than name, it needs material support: affordable housing, fair pay, welfare systems that recognise irregular work as work.
Until then, many queer creatives will continue to do what they have always done. Keep showing up, keep writing songs. And keep walking into the audition room.
There is something quietly radical in that persistence. But it should not be mistaken for proof that the system is working.
Featured image is an Illustration generated using AI, based on photos provided by the subjects.