Tag Archives: music teachers

Music Teachers: demand and supply

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As part of its  monthly review of applications by graduates to train as a teacher, this blog has often commented upon the issue of whether there will be sufficient new teachers of music. This blog has also condemned the withdrawal of the bursary for music by the Labour government.

Recent posts include:

Don’t let this government kill off music in state schools. | John Howson July 2026

Music ITT: has the government made a mistake? | John Howson June 2026

Reviving Music Teacher Bursaries: A Necessity | John Howson

These posts are all related to the supply side of the question about how many music teachers are needed each year to staff the state school system in England. The DfE answers that question using the Teacher Supply Model, basically an algorithm using past data that can be problematic when future needs don’t follow past trends.

For most of the period between 2015 and July 2026, I have been tracking actual demand for music teachers in state schools, as recorded through advertisements. Tracking adverts has the added advantage of not only assessing demand for classroom teachers, but also looks at trends for subject leaders in music, and the extent to which they are part of larger groupings of arts and creative subjects. Tracking vacancies can also highlight areas where demand is not being met easily, but highlighting where vacancies are being re-advertised.

I have already posted a couple of blogs so far this year on demand:

Labour market for music teachers: update to end of April 2026 | John Howson

Demand for music teachers: where were the jobs in early 2026? | John Howson

During the summer, I have been working on a report considering a number of factors around the vacancies for music teachers. The report:

The Demand for teachers of music: January to August 2026

Is now available from dataforeducation@gmail.com

Part of the conclusion to the report states that;

‘It will not be known until December 2026 as to whether trainee numbers are sufficient to meet the needs of schools after taking into account the number of returners to teaching. However, the fact that some 20% of posts were readvertised during the survey period does point to some pressure on the pool of possible applicants. There certainly seems to be only a small reserve at best. ‘

Music is an important art of the nation’s cultural heritage and identity, and the State, through schooling, has an important part to play in recognising the breadth and depth of that heritage, and encouraging future generations to continue and develop it in ways never imagined when I was at school.

To ensure a pipeline for the future, especially if university departments continue to axe music degrees, then the music community in schools should consider creating a teaching apprenticeship for those young people that are good at music and might want to become a teacher. Creative thinking about developing future teachers of music is an imperative. Now, who will take the lead? The new National Centre? Unlikely? So, it is up to the community, and perhaps MusicMark to think deeply about the issue of where the next generation of teachers of music will come from in a changing world of higher education. A teaching conservatoire?

Music teachers: labour market update

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One of the leitmotifs of this blog has been around the labour market for teachers, from numbers entering training, through vacancies for teachers, to the numbers of teachers that are in-service.

This academic year, I have been tracking the data on vacancies for headteachers – a study started more than 40 years ago – and vacancies for teachers of music. This is as a part of my campaign to see the bursary returned to trainee teachers of music, after the Labour government axed it an act of cultural vandalism that I might have expected from other political parties, but not from Labour.

Anyway, enough of my rant. Does the data support my thesis that there are not enough music trainees this year, even with the bursary, and that any reduction in trainee numbers will affect the 2027 labour market, making it more difficult for schools, and especially secondary schools in challenging circumstances, to recruit music teachers? For earlier discussions on this point see:  Music teachers: bring back the bursary | John Howson and Reviving Music Teacher Bursaries: A Necessity | John Howson

The graph in this post shows recorded 2026 vacancies for main scale teachers of music (no TLR) advertised since the start of January2026, and recorded from both the DfE vacancy site and the tes job board. The 2026 data have been plotted against previous years data, collected by TeachVac from school websites and local authority job boards.

The plotted line is the residual, reached after subtracting the recorded vacancies from number of trainees contained in the DfE’s ITT census published in the December 2025. By Friday 29th May 2026 the residual number had just turned negative; meaning more vacancies recorded than trainees possibly available to enter the labour market.

Two caveats are required at this point: not all trainees will complete their course, and of those that do, not all will enter teaching in state schools – some with not teach, others will teach in Sixth Form Colleges, and yet other will teach in the independent sector that now comprises a significant proportion of ‘A’ Music level entries. The second caveat is that in addition to trainees, there will be other entrants into the music teacher labour market. Some other entrants will be switching schools, but possibly most will be doing for a teaching job with a TLR. Then there will be those returning to state school teaching either from other jobs or a career break. This group will become increasingly important for the job market as the rest of 2026 unfolds, and the new entrants into teaching either find a teaching post in a state school of opt to work elsewhere.

For various reasons TeachVac stopped collecting data in 2023, so the data for 2024 and 2025 is missing. Comparing 2026 with earlier years, shows a trend worse than before covid, but better than in 2022, and the disastrous 2023, when poor recruitment into ITT in 2022 and the number of new schools opening in response to the increase in the secondary school population ensured a higher-than-normal demand for teachers. However, here was my analysis in June 2023 TeachVac’s index shows depth of teacher recruitment crisis | John Howson

For the current market outcome, if you discount the ITT 2025 census total by either 10% or 20%, for numbers in the census not likely to enter mainstream school teaching in the secondary sector, then the current negative residual at the end of May 2026, of -5, worsens to either -41 or -78.

This number assumes that vacancies tracked cover the whole market and that regional or other job boards, such as within large MATs, that are not counted in my survey have not seen many vacancies not placed on either the DfE or tes site.

Some schools may have offered trainees working in their schools a job, and saved on advertising costs. However, without more detailed surveys, such jobs would be difficult to account for.

One issue overcome by direct verification of the DfE and tes sites, is the thorny question of re-advertisements and repeat advertisements. The data used in this report ignores any second or subsequent advertisement by a school for a teacher of music unless it is significantly different to any previous advertised vacancy. Examples include a part-time post when the previous vacancy was for a full-time teachers and a maternity leave temporary post following one for a permanent appointment.

In a future post, I will look into the characteristics of schools that have re-advertised a vacancy.

After weighing the data on vacancies so far, and trends in ITT recruitment – see More thoughts on the ITT round for 2026 | John Howson – I think the removal of the bursary by the DfE was a risk, and that it may damage the future of music in state secondary schools in the future. I look forward to being proved wrong.