The ISM's annual survey of teaching, examining and accompanying rates

Fees for private teaching, part-time teaching in schools, fees charged for accompanying and fees charged for examining

Thank you to all of you who responded to our recent survey of tuition fees. The survey was conducted by an independent statistician and was open from 19 December 2022 to 6 March 2023. In total there were 663 respondents who answered enough questions to be included in the results. The results in this report are based on all respondents, both ISM members and non-members.

Contents

Experience and qualification 2

Survey results for private music teachers 4

Survey results for part-time music teaching in schools – employed 9

The survey was conducted in the context of the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the cost-of-living crisis. There was also a greater emphasis on employment status and contracts. The reference point for most of the survey questions was September 2022.

Survey results for part-time music teaching in schools – self-employed 12

Comparing employed with self-employed 14

This year the survey covered the following parts of the sector:

• Private teaching

• Part-time teaching in schools (both employed and self-employed)

• Accompanying services

• Examining

The survey results are summarised in this document. These are not recommendations. Competition law prevents us – and other trade associations and organisations – from recommending rates for musicians’ freelance work. All the figures in this document are for 1:1 teaching.

Survey results for accompanists and examiners 15

Long-term impact of the coronavirus pandemic 16

Questions relating to the cost-of-living crisis

16

More information 17

Experience and qualification

Respondents’ teaching experience was similar to previous years, with the majority of people having more than 15 years of experience teaching. The trend of recent years for a reduction in the proportion of teachers with less than five years’ experience continues. This might suggest a drop in the number of new teachers entering the sector, though it is also possible that there may be less of a propensity for younger teachers to respond to the survey.

The highest music qualification held by respondents remains a music degree or equivalent. There has been an increase in the proportion with a master’s degree, continuing an upward trend noted last year (18.4% in 2021).

What instruments do respondents teach?

As with previous years, piano or organ was by far the most common instrument taught, with almost half of all respondents predominantly teaching these. Woodwind and brass have enjoyed small increases, perhaps reflecting the full relaxation of COVID-19 restrictions.

Survey results for private music teachers

Ninety five percent of respondents had done some private face-to-face teaching in the past year, recovering to pre-pandemic levels. Nearly half of these had conducted remote teaching too, which may suggest that this medium is now well established in the industry. Just 3.6% charged slightly less for remote teaching than face-toface. Less than 2% of all respondents did remote teaching exclusively.

Forty six percent of respondents reported that they had increased their rates this year. The bottom 20% and top 20% of rates charged for face-to-face teaching, along with the median, are shown in the table below, with comparisons to 2021, 2020 and 2019.

Assessing the changes in hourly rates by region, London has seen a sharp rise in the median rate of 10-12%, following no change the previous year. North East England1 and Scotland have also enjoyed almost 10% rises. Elsewhere there have been more modest increases.

Comparisons between the regions indicate three distinct groupings. London, South East England and the rest. When considering average hourly rates, the difference is even more marked, with Inner London almost £15 higher than Yorkshire and more than £18 over Northern Ireland2 .

Forty one percent of respondents expect to increase their fees in the coming year compared with 43% last year and 30.7% in 2020.

Hourly rates for teaching by region

Bottom 20% Median 2023 Top 20% Median 2022

Inner London £38.40 £45 £55.60 £40

Outer London £37.60 £44 £50 £40

Elsewhere in South East England £33.28 £40 £44 £38

Hourly rates for private teaching

Bottom 20% Median Top 20%

Almost all respondents that had conducted private teaching provided their hourly rate, with an increase of £1 to £36 per hour for the median rate. Charges ranged from £10 to £110 per hour and those charging the most enjoyed a 10% increase, in line with inflation.

Face-to-face teaching

From September 2022 £30 £36 £44

From September 2021 £30 £35 £40

From September 2020 £30 £33 £40

From September 2019 £28 £32 £40

In previous years sample sizes had been too small to make statistical comparisons reliable, but the increased number of respondents has allowed analysis of this aspect. Inner and Outer London rates remain significantly higher than the rest of the UK, with rates in the South East significantly higher than everywhere else except the East of England.

1 Relatively small sample

2 Relatively small sample

East England £32 £36 £40 £34

West Midlands £30 £35.50 £40 £34.50

North East England £30 £35 £40 £32

South West England £30 £34 £40 £32

North West England £30 £34 £40 £32

Scotland £28 £34 £38 £31

East Midlands £30 £33 £36 £31.50

Wales £30 £33 £36 N/A

Yorkshire £30 £32.25 £35 £32

Northern Ireland £24.20 £30.75 £35.20 N/A

Other £23 £50 £72 N/A

Independent Society of Musicians 2023

You can read our tips on how to set your own fees, including how to assess where you fit within the overall range of fees and how to negotiate with your pupils and parents, by visiting ism.org/advice/tips-for-setting-music-tuition-rates

Previously the survey asked how many pupils they teach and how many were adults. This year the question was focused on the age range of pupils rather than the number. Most taught all ages.

Employment status

Employment rights and protections are decided by someone’s employment status. Although the rights themselves are fairly clear, understanding when you might be entitled to access those rights can be more difficult, as it often depends on multiple factors. To confuse matters even more, an individual may hold one status in employment law but have a different status for tax purposes.

but in essence, the more control that an organisation exerts over you, especially during times when you are not working for them, the more likely you are to be an employee.

Our guide, How to…Teach adult learners, is free for members and takes you through altering your pedagogy for older learners, as well as providing key recommendations for maintaining motivation and developing this side of your business. Visit ism.org/advice-centre/teach-adult-learners

There are three different statuses: employee, worker and self-employed. Employment status matters as it can provide protections and rights for music teachers. Even employees and workers with zero-hours contracts have the rights that follow from their employment status.

Employees have the most employment rights. These include protection against unfair dismissal and the right to a redundancy payment after a qualifying period. Employees also have rights to Statutory Sick Pay, minimum notice periods, parental leave and pay, the right to request flexible working, and other important rights to time off, mostly linked to care giving.

Employees

An employee is someone with a contract of employment. Typically, an employer is likely to have a high degree of control over what a person does, how it is done and when it has to finished. Employees cannot send someone else to do their work and if an employee breaks the organisation’s rules, they can be disciplined or dismissed. Whether or not you are an employee always depends on the specific facts,

As well as these rights, employees have all the rights that are available to workers. These include a right to the National Minimum Wage (NMW) or National Living Wage (NLW), minimum levels of rest breaks, paid holiday and protection from discrimination. You can be an employee even if you don’t have guaranteed hours.

Workers

A worker is someone who is required to personally perform any work or services but who is not doing that work as a genuinely self-employed person. In other words, they are not running their own business looking after their own

customers and clients. Typically, workers are engaged to do work on a casual, freelance or as-required basis. ‘Worker-style’ contracts often state that the organisation is not ‘obliged’ to offer work or the individual to accept it. The main difference between employees and workers is the amount of control asserted by the organisation over the individual’s activities, especially when they are not working.

negotiate in the contract with their customer.

Why employment status matters

Survey results for part-time music teaching in schools – employed

Workers have some rights, but not as many as employees. Key rights include the NMW or NLW, minimum rest breaks, paid holiday, protection from discrimination and harassment at work, reasonable adjustments if they are disabled, and a safe workplace. Workers also have valuable rights to be given information about their pay and other terms and conditions, including a payslip. However, workers have none of the legal rights available to employees that are designed to protect ‘job security’, such as minimum notice periods, protection from unfair dismissal and the right to a redundancy payment.

Self-employed

An individual is considered self-employed if they run their business for themselves and take responsibility for its success or failure. The genuinely self-employed have very few rights at work, except what they have been able to

Knowing your employment status is important because it is the gateway to key legal rights such as holiday pay or protection from unfair dismissal. However, employment status can be a complex area for music teachers. An important point to note is that even if you have signed a written contract document that describes you as ‘selfemployed’ or ‘freelance’, that is often not the end of the matter. In 2021, in the case of Uber v Aslam, the Supreme Court said that what matters more than the documentation (which is inevitably written by the organisation and presented on a ‘take or leave it’ basis) is the way the relationship really plays out, day to day. For example, if there is a high degree of control, a teacher cannot send a substitute and cannot negotiate their own fees, then they are more likely to be a worker or employee. If the opposite is true and a teacher is able to send a substitute, deals directly with parents and sets their own fees, then they are more likely to be self-employed.

ISM members who have a concern about their employment status can contact the ISM’s legal team at legal@ism.org

Thirty percent of respondents had taught as an employed teacher in a school or other educational establishment since September 2022, returning to pre-pandemic levels. As previously, teaching in independent schools was the most common. This year, music hub and specialist music school categories were combined.

narrowed. Fees are lowest in music hubs/specialist music schools (figures combined this year).

Forty seven percent of respondents expect rates to increase by September 2023.

Hourly rates for employed music teachers by school type

employed teachers

All of those that had reported as employed in schools reported their hourly rates, and 54% said that they had increased in the past year, though the increase was modest – on average just £1.60 per hour. Just four people reported that their rates had reduced. Rates continue to be higher in independent schools, though this gap has

Most of the respondents were employed in London and the South East (approximately 50%). As may be expected, rates are higher in London and the South East; less so is the indication that the median (and average) rate is higher in Outer London than Inner London. Although median rates in the East of England are also high, the bottom rates are quite low and the sample size is small (13).

Hourly rates for employed music teachers by region (excluding Wales, Scotland, NI and North East England due to small sample sizes)

Bottom 20% Median 2023 Top 20%

Outer London £29 £38.25 £44

Inner London £32.60 £35.99 £44.68

Elsewhere in

South East England £30 £34.63 £42

East England £25.10 £34.84 £45.50

North West England £24.40 £31 £35.74

South West England £28.46 £30 £34

East Midlands £25 £28.08 £33.50

West Midlands £23.80 £27 £33.49

Yorkshire £19.10 £27.60 £33.50

Pay Progression Routes

The survey asked if employers provided any means to improve pay over a period of time, such as a salary scale or years of service. Only 7% said that this was part of their contract.

Zero-hours contracts

Zero-hours contracts are a type of ‘atypical’ working where an individual (who can be either an employee or worker) has no minimum set contracted hours. Fifty nine percent of state school employees were on zero-hours contracts compared with 69% specialist music establishments and up to 74% of those working at independent schools.

Holiday Pay

In last year’s survey, 43% of respondents reported that holiday pay was pro-rated based on the amount of work during the school year; of those, 57% answered that their holiday is part of their hourly rate. Close to 30% of respondents did not know if their holiday was pro-rated.

Pension Scheme

Fifty five percent of employed teachers reported being enrolled in their employers’ pension scheme, (up from 50% last year) with 80% of these in the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (86% last year).

The ISM recommends that zero-hours contracts should not be used if there is a regular pattern of work, a regular number of hours on offer or if an individual wants an employment contract that guarantees a minimum number of hours. We also recommend that organisations should only use zero-hours contracts if they are jointly agreed with staff, where staff are able to request guaranteed hours, workloads are greatly variable and staff have comparable employment rights to other staff. Zero-hours contracts should also be reviewed at least annually and, where possible, staff moved to a permanent or fixed-term contract.

This year, following the Harpur Trust v Brazel ruling in July 20223, the survey asked whether employers had changed how they calculate holiday pay to reflect the judgment.

Of 199 respondents, 47% did not know whether this had changed. Forty percent said no, with just 13% reporting that employers had implemented the required changes.

ISM members have access to our specialist in-house legal team (ism.org/my-ism/speak-to-our-legal-team) for queries relating to contracts, holiday pay and pensions.

3The Supreme Court handed down their judgment in the case of The Harpur Trust v Brazel in July 2022. This landmark case determined that the holiday pay for term-time only workers (such as visiting music teachers) should be calculated straightforwardly, by simply taking a normal week’s pay and multiplying it by 5.6 to produce 5.6 weeks of paid holiday instead of applying a ‘pro-rata’ formula based on 12.07% of basic hourly pay.

Survey results for part-time music teaching in schools

– self-employed

Two hundred and eighty one respondents had worked in schools as a self-employed visiting teacher since September 2022. This was 42% of the total number of people completing the survey, up from 34% last year. Sixty one percent of these said they chose to be selfemployed, while 39% would prefer to be employed by the establishment but this option was not available

School type for self-employed music teachers

Hourly rates for self-employed teachers by school type

Bottom 20% Median Top 20% Independent School £35 £42 £46 State-funded school (incl. academies) £30 £34 £39

Music Hub/ music school £26.90 £30 £36.40

Hourly rates for self-employed teachers by region

Bottom 20% Median Top 20%

Inner London £33.40 £43 £54.80

Outer London £39.40 £43 £48

Elsewhere in South East England £34 £40 £45

East England £36 £36 £39.48

As in previous years, the sample of self-employed teachers is spread more evenly between state and private schools than those employed by the school. Fifty six percent reported that they had worked in state-funded schools with a further 48% reporting activity in independent schools. Just under 10% of the sample worked in a music hub/music school. Some of the respondents in this category will have worked in more than one type of establishment.

Hourly rates

Fifty six percent of respondents said that their rates had increased since September 2021, the median increase being around £2 per hour. Statistical testing shows that hourly rates continue to be significantly higher in independent schools, a median rate of £42 compared to £34 in state schools and £30 in music hubs. Just two respondents reported a fee reduction.

Only 7% of the sample were located in Inner London. Outer London and the South East of England made up 37% of respondents. The samples for North East England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland were too small to give reliable results.

South West England £29.80 £34.25 £40

West Midlands £30 £35 £40.40

East Midlands £30 £33 £36

Yorkshire £30 £33 £36

North West England £28.10 £31.75 £36.80

As with other categories, London and the South East enjoy much higher median rates. The average rate in Outer London is more than £11 higher than North West England.

Room hire and administration fees

Very few respondents were paying for room hire or administration fees – just 55 and 16 respectively. The results do not offer a pattern for the rate of fees.

Comparing employed with self-employed

Survey results for accompanists and examiners

Of the 663 survey respondents, 156 reported that they had done accompanying work across the below categories, in either one or more areas.

As with previous surveys, hourly teaching rates are higher for self-employed contracts than employed. There is still a statistically significant difference between average hourly rates of £37.30 for self-employed teachers compared with £33.66 for employees.

Median rates have increased in most categories, some by as much as £5 per hour.

Comparison of

Examinations

Grades 1–4 £27 £35 £45 £33.50

Grades 5–6 £30 £40 £50 £35

Grades 7–8 £34 £40 £50 £38.10

Diplomas £35 £45 £59 £40

As with last year’s survey, numbers working as examiners were very small. Just 3% of respondents reported activity in this area and therefore the data will not be considered other than to summarise. In total 22 people had worked for one of the below organisations with 18 doing so on a self-employed basis.

Self-employed

Festivals and competitions (incl. rehearsal fee) £28 £38 £50 £35

Amateur choir or operatic society £25 £35 £40.60 £35

School or college choir £28 £38 £50 N/A

Dance lessons £19.20 £28 £36.40 N/A

Auditions (incl. rehearsal fee) £28.40 £43 £50 £40

Organist in church £30 £50 £78 £50

Which organisation did you work for as an examiner? Frequency

Associated Board for the Royal Schools 12 Trinity College London (TCL) 4 London College of Music (LCM) 1 MTB 2

hourly rates according to employment

Long-term impact of the coronavirus pandemic

Questions relating to the cost-of-living crisis

This year there was less emphasis on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Apart from the figures below, the main impact is that online teaching has now become commonplace and a valid alternative to face-to-face teaching for many pupils and teachers.

Long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

It is clear from comments that many teachers are experiencing a drop-off in demand even where this has not yet manifested in a significant reduction in pupil numbers. Teachers report not increasing their rates for fear of losing pupils or contracts, despite rising costs such as transport to appointments and heating premises.

More information

Legal services, insurances and more

ISM members have access to our 24-hour legal helpline and specialist in-house legal team. The legal helpline is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to offer members advice about any legal matter; our specialist in-house legal team are there to assist members with issues affecting their professional work.

The ISM also produces advice pages and guides, some of which are free to non-ISM members. Our advice pages offer guidance on numerous topics, including writing a risk assessment, applying for a CITES permit or certificate and safeguarding. Our How to… guides include three guides released last year that look at teaching adult learners, an overview of the profession and becoming an instrumental teacher. The ISM

ISM members receive public liability insurance cover up to £10m in the event of claims against you relating to injuries to third parties or damage to their property in the course of your work; an unpaid fees service that recovers overdue payments owed to you in relation to your work; DBS, PVG and Access NI checks and advice; listings in our Music Directory to help you promote your services, obtain work and access an active community of music educators who you can meet and share ideas with. Find out what else you are entitled to as an ISM member at ism.org

Teachers’ Pack

and professional development webinars, provided by the ISM Trust

The ISM Teachers’ Pack

Our Teachers’ Pack is designed as a helpful guide for all instrumental and vocal teachers, whether they are employed, working freelance in schools or teaching privately. It covers issues that all music teachers need to know about, including finding work, setting rates, recovering unpaid fees, safeguarding, Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks and tax

Professional development webinars

Our webinar series covers need-to-know subjects such as safeguarding, graded examinations, changes in primary and secondary curriculum, setting your tuition fees, teaching students with dyslexia or other educational needs, GCSE and A-Level music, progression, curriculum and assessment and more.

About the ISM

The Independent Society of Musicians (ISM) is the UK’s largest non-union representative body for those working in music, including music teachers.

We are also a nationally recognised subject association for music. Since 1882, the ISM has been dedicated to promoting the importance of music and protecting the rights of those working in the music profession. We support over 11,000 members across the UK and Ireland with our unrivalled legal advice and representation, comprehensive insurance and specialist services.

Our members come from all areas of the music profession including performers, educators, composers and songwriters, academia, music therapists and more, bringing a wide variety of genres and musical backgrounds. As well as working musicians, our membership also includes part-time and full-time music students, those in the early part of their career right through to retired musicians. We campaign tirelessly in support of musicians’ rights, music education and the profession as a whole. The ISM provides the secretariat to the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Music Education and regularly produces research into the issues affecting the sector.

We are a financially independent, not-for-profit organisation with no political affiliation. This independence allows us the freedom to campaign on any issue affecting musicians. In 2021, the ISM was named Individual Member Association of the Year at the UK Association Awards and in 2022 became the Independent Society of Musicians.