Contents
- Piano teacher employment statistics: the limits of official occupational counts
- Piano teacher employment statistics: weekly teaching hours
- Piano teacher employment statistics: teaching settings and work arrangements
- Piano teacher employment statistics: instruments and subjects taught
- Piano teacher employment statistics: participation context
- Piano teacher employment statistics: postsecondary employment and wages
- Sources
Piano teacher employment statistics: the limits of official occupational counts
Finding a precise number of piano teachers in official employment data is difficult because the cited U.S. occupational tables combine several arts disciplines. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimated 93,560 employed U.S. art, drama, and music teachers at the postsecondary level in May 2025. That figure covers the combined occupation; it does not show how many of those workers taught piano. The same table reported 239,780 workers in the broader combined category of arts, communications, history, and humanities teachers at the postsecondary level. That group is useful as occupational context, but it is broader still. BLS, May 2025 national employment and wage data
A separate BLS summary gives a broad benchmark: the median annual wage for postsecondary teachers overall was $85,330 in May 2025. This includes many subject areas and is not a piano-teacher pay figure. Taken together, these official measures show the scale of related occupational groups, not the size or earnings of a piano-teacher workforce. BLS, Postsecondary Teachers Occupational Outlook Handbook
The distinction matters because “piano teacher” can describe work in a private home, a studio, a school or a college. The cited BLS counts concern postsecondary teaching jobs, while the UK survey findings below concern music teachers responding to a survey. Neither source supplies a standalone census of piano teachers across all employment settings. The figures can illuminate teaching patterns and adjacent occupational measures, but they should not be treated as a single, directly comparable headcount. BLS, May 2025 national employment and wage data; ABRSM, Learning, Playing and Teaching in the UK in 2021
Piano teacher employment statistics: weekly teaching hours
ABRSM’s 2020 UK survey asked music teachers about weekly teaching hours. Among 2,485 teacher respondents, 36% reported fewer than 10 hours of teaching per week, and 24% reported 10–20 hours. Another 19% reported 21–30 hours, while 12% reported 31–40 hours. These are teaching hours, not total hours worked across preparation, administration, travel or other work. They also describe music teachers generally, not piano teachers alone. ABRSM, Figure 44, “Music teacher weekly working hours”
| Weekly teaching hours reported | Share of UK music-teacher respondents |
|---|---|
| Less than 10 hours | 36% |
| 10–20 hours | 24% |
| 21–30 hours | 19% |
| 31–40 hours | 12% |
| More than 40 hours | 7% |
The remaining responses were 2% for hours that “var[y] too much to say” and 1% for “Don’t know.” The report’s categories show a range of weekly teaching commitments, including substantial groups reporting fewer than 10 hours and 10–20 hours. They do not establish whether respondents held another job, how much they earned, or whether they taught piano. ABRSM, Figure 44, “Music teacher weekly working hours”
These results come from the 2020 survey, published in 2021. They should be read as a snapshot of responding UK music teachers during that survey period, rather than a current estimate or a time series. The chart measures hours spent teaching; it does not provide a complete workweek measure. ABRSM, Learning, Playing and Teaching in the UK in 2021
Piano teacher employment statistics: teaching settings and work arrangements
The ABRSM survey shows that music teaching took place across a mix of environments. In its mutually exclusive setting categories, 34% of respondents taught exclusively in private settings, 28% selected “Schools and private,” and 14% selected “Schools other and private.” A further 10% taught exclusively in schools, 8% selected “Private and other,” 4% selected “Schools and other,” and 3% chose “Other.” The report also states that 53% taught in a variety of contexts. The combination categories and the variety measure describe different views of teaching arrangements; they should not be added together. ABRSM, Figure 45 and accompanying discussion of teaching environments
A separate question allowed teachers to identify particular locations. In this multiple-response measure, 82% taught privately in their own home or studio, or in a student’s home. State primary schools were reported by 33%, state secondary schools by 28%, internet teaching by 14%, and teaching at a university or college by 5%. Because respondents could select multiple locations, these percentages can overlap. They should not be interpreted as exclusive employment categories or summed into a distribution. ABRSM, Figure 46, “Teaching environments”
The survey also describes lesson formats. One-to-one instrumental lessons were provided by 94% of respondents. Another 38% taught in groups as well, and 5% provided group tuition only. These formats help describe how music instruction was delivered, but they do not identify the number of jobs, the number of students per teacher or the share of respondents teaching piano. ABRSM, report discussion accompanying Figures 44 and 45; Figure 41
Together, the setting and format responses portray work that may span private homes, studios, schools, online lessons and other institutions. They are useful context for understanding why a single occupational count may not capture the full range of music teaching. The survey remains a sample of UK music teachers, not a population-weighted census of piano teachers. ABRSM, Learning, Playing and Teaching in the UK in 2021
Piano teacher employment statistics: instruments and subjects taught
Piano was the most commonly reported subject in ABRSM’s list of the top 10 subjects taught by surveyed UK music teachers. In 2020, 69% of the 2,485 teacher respondents said they taught piano. The question allowed teachers to report multiple subjects, so this is not the share who taught piano exclusively and not a count of piano-teacher jobs. Theory of music was reported by 60%, singing by 26%, flute by 18%, keyboard by 18%, violin by 17%, recorder by 16%, clarinet by 15%, saxophone by 13%, and trumpet by 8%. ABRSM, Figure 38, “Top 10 subjects taught by music teachers”
| Subject reported | UK music-teacher respondents |
|---|---|
| Piano | 69% |
| Theory of music | 60% |
| Singing | 26% |
| Flute | 18% |
| Keyboard | 18% |
| Violin | 17% |
| Recorder | 16% |
| Clarinet | 15% |
| Saxophone | 13% |
| Trumpet | 8% |
The report gives a more specific picture for teachers who offered piano: 52% of that subset also offered another instrument, 10% offered music theory and 1% offered singing. These figures use piano-offering teachers as their base, unlike the broader subject percentages above, which use all responding music teachers. ABRSM, Figure 37 and accompanying discussion, “What teachers teach”
ABRSM also provides a historical comparison. In its 1994 survey, 70% of music teachers taught only piano, and no other instrument was taught by more than 7% of teachers. That older result is not a current figure; it offers a dated contrast with the 2020 finding that piano was widely taught alongside a varied set of other subjects. The different survey years should not be mistaken for a controlled estimate of change in the workforce. ABRSM, Figure 37 discussion, historical reference to Making Music 1994
Piano teacher employment statistics: participation context
Student participation offers context for the environment in which music teachers work, but it is not an employment measure. In the UK survey, 32% of children aged 5–17 were currently having instrumental music lessons in 2020, compared with 36% in 2014. These figures cover instrumental lessons generally, not piano lessons specifically. ABRSM, discussion preceding Figure 16
For adults, 5% of surveyed UK respondents were currently having instrumental music lessons in 2020. The corresponding figure in 2014 was also 5%. The adult respondent base was 1,505 in 2020 and 1,255 in 2014. These are participation shares for instrumental lessons, with no piano-only breakdown in the reported observations. ABRSM, Figure 17, “Instrumental music lessons for adults”
Among music teachers, 44% said their student numbers had increased over the preceding 5 years. This is a self-reported change among survey respondents, not a measure of national employment growth or a causal explanation for changes in teaching work. Separately, 16% of teachers worked with groups of 21 or more learners in 2020. The latter describes group size, not the number of unique students taught in a year. ABRSM, Data Summary, “How is Music Taught?”; page 46 group-size discussion
Piano teacher employment statistics: postsecondary employment and wages
BLS data provide a more detailed view of postsecondary employment and wages, while retaining the same occupational limitation: the category combines art, drama and music teachers. In May 2023, the estimated U.S. employment for that occupation was 101,500. The estimate excludes self-employed workers, according to the table’s footnote. It therefore cannot be used as a count of all people who teach piano privately or independently. BLS, Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2023: Art, Drama, and Music Teachers, Postsecondary
For the combined occupation, the May 2023 median annual wage was $80,360. The annual wage percentiles were $47,570 at the 10th percentile, $61,970 at the 25th, $110,120 at the 75th and $178,670 at the 90th. These are occupational wage estimates, not piano-teacher-specific earnings or guaranteed individual salaries. BLS, national percentile wage estimates, May 2023
| Annual wage percentile, May 2023 | U.S. art, drama, and music teachers, postsecondary |
|---|---|
| 10th | $47,570 |
| 25th | $61,970 |
| 50th (median) | $80,360 |
| 75th | $110,120 |
| 90th | $178,670 |
The industry profile reported 80,900 workers in colleges, universities and professional schools, 15,610 in junior colleges, and 4,090 in other schools and instruction. These are industry employment counts for the combined postsecondary arts occupation. They show where the occupation was employed in the listed industries; they do not isolate music teachers or piano instructors. BLS, May 2023 industry profile
The BLS reports annual wage estimates alongside hourly measures and explains its annual wage basis in its table notes. Those reporting conventions matter when interpreting wage data across occupations and work schedules. Here, the key limit is scope: May 2023 postsecondary wage figures describe a combined occupational group and should not be presented as current, private-lesson rates or piano-teacher salaries. BLS, May 2023 national estimates and table notes
Sources
- Learning, Playing and Teaching in the UK in 2021: ABRSM Making Music Report 2021
- Table 1. National employment and wage data from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey by occupation, May 2025
- Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2023: Art, Drama, and Music Teachers, Postsecondary
- Postsecondary Teachers: Occupational Outlook Handbook