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

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.

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.