So how did those of you have had a starting out rate work your way up from those rates to the going rate? Say you start out at £5 and are aiming at £23, it's a big gap to bridge, how long did it take, did you take on new students at the full rate and gradually bring the others up to that level, or something else? When did you decide you were no longer offering a start-up service and deserved to be paid the going rate?

I never undermined going rates, even when I started out. I was always a firm believer that if I am good enough to teach, I will be good enough to charge going rates. If I am not good enough to charge going rates, maybe I shouldn't teach.
I know this may sound harsh, but I firmly believe it is true (of course it doesn't mean that everybody charging the going rate is therefore necessarily a good teacher ).
I always based this idea on two reasons:

1. If I am good at what I do (of course we all keep on learning, no matter how long we've been teaching), I deserve to be paid for it. There is no reason why I should charge a quarter (or less) of going rates. Beginners earn less, yes, but how many school teachers do you know who start out and only earn 25% of what they earn after a couple of years? They start on a lower wage, but not to the extent you sometimes see with private teachers.
2. If I undermine the going rates, I destroy the prices for everyone else, because the word will spread.

Having said that - even going rates have a range you can move in. So you would start at the lower end when you begin teaching, and then you would gradually put your prices up.

To give you an example: The MU suggests the following rates for peris for the academic year 2009/2010, and this gives you a good idea of a range to move in, depending on expertise/experience etc:

1. Entry Level: £22.00 - £23.50 per hour
For newly qualified teachers on entry to the profession. This level is expected to apply for not more than two years.
2. Standard Level: £25.50 - £27.50 per hour
Takes into account FHE and other relevant specialist musical qualifications and a minimum of two years’ relevant experience (addition by myself: The recommended private teaching rate always falls into this bracket, and it is £27 for 2009/2010).
3. Credit Level: £28.50 - £31.00 per hour
Allows for recognition of further teaching experience; quality and additional qualifications; experience and status as a performer.
4. Advanced Level: at least £32.00 per hour
Applies to teachers who do advanced or specialised work or who have additional extra duties or responsibilities. These teachers should be paid at a higher hourly rate commensurate with such work or duties. Extra duties and responsibilities include those required of a Head of Department (e.g. Head of Strings, Administrator or Music Co-ordinator.)

After 5 years of teaching experience (and over 10 years as a professional performer), I certainly don't see myself lower than standard level. I could enter credit level with my experience, but I decided not to because of the area I live in and the people I teach - at some point, you will price yourself out. I will be at the higher end of the bracket though (I always put my prices up in Jan, not in Sep), which feels justified, and I still offer discounts to people who make a commitment (even those won't be in the lowest bracket though).

In which of those brackets you see yourself is very individual, but I don't think that the lowest one should be left, even for teachers who just start out. If I calculate all my expenses, cost of professional development and the amount of additional (non-contact) hours I put in, I still don't earn much more than minimum wage - this is just something people don't see.

So I would always advise new teachers to be confident in what they do and not sell themselves under value. If you already have low prices, bring them up gradually, maybe even show your existing students the current price ranges if you plan to hike them up at once, and don't accept new pupils at low rates anymore.

*puts up rates*

On you go

I pay £30 each hour to my teacher but we often go 5 minutes over as he is often explaining some theory at the end of the lesson.

My previous teacher charged £17 for 30 minutes, which my parents used to pay and now I realise that this price was a little high.

Cambridge, U.K.

Piano: £20 per hour (I have 45 min lessons) - I think this is very good, looking at some other people's examples!
Clarinet and bassoon: are joint lessons in school, 20 mins long. For one year it's £260 (at least 30 lessons, through CIMA). It's the half term, so I don't have the energy to do maths and work out the hourly rate!

The average salary for a newly qualified teacher in the UK is 22,000. The average for all teachers is 34,000.

Suppose, as a private teacher you manage 30 hours contact time a week (and say 10+ hours preparation and administration). With student concerts, exams and so on you'll probably do rather more. You'll have some expenses (printing, accountancy, insurance, membership of professional bodies you may need more.) but unless you are peripatetic (in which case you'll need a LOT more to cover dead time travelling and additional transport) you won't have the daily expense of commuting which is the lot of many in full-time employment.

To make the maths easy (and not too innacurate) suppose you teach 50 weeks ayear, so 1500 hours. Also I am going to round all figures up to the nearest pound.

So at 15/hr you'll barely make the same as a newly qualified teacher. To make as much as an average classroom teacher you'll need to charge 23/hr

With all the publicity given to the pay of directors of public companies, footballers, MEPs, banker's bonuses and the like you'd be forgiven for thinking that everyone else is earning a fortune.

In fact:

only 10% of workers are on over 44,000 p.a. (30/h for our hypothetical teacher)
only 10% of workers are on over 56,000 p.a. (37/h)

The top 1% earns 118,000 or more (79/h)

Just as a matter of interest, do others feel that a one-to-one tutor is a harder or an easier job than that of a classroom teacher? Sorry to put it in such simplistic terms; I'm just wondering whether we deserve the same, more, or less money by the hour for what we do. Are our required skills - technical and personal - greater, less or the same as a classroom teacher?

there are so many factors that go into working that one out. Having done both it's definitely harder (physically and mentally) teaching a class of 30 kids with 30 different sets of needs, meeting targets set by governments that don't care if Wayne and Bradley (random names) cannot read, they will still need to pass their so and so test because they are 12 years old and that is when you pass that test. The kids have not chosen to be there and there is virtually no sanction you can apply to get rid of them for non-co-operation the way you can with private teaching. You also have to deliver a load more different subjects at primary level than just focussing on teaching one, say piano or violin or whatever.

Flipside, however, is that teachers got most of their education free. Going to school didn't cost them a penny, some of their university years may have cost them, but then most music teachers also had uni fees to pay, and on top of that we had to pay for all our lessons throughout, and all the costs of our exams and equipment. The classroom teacher doesn't need pay for blackboard chalk or paper the way we pay for strings, reeds, music stands and sundries. The teacher's union subs are much, much lower. The classroom teacher inevitably cannot give one to one individual focus to each child, so there is always a compromise, wheras in individual lessons or small groups there is more time spent doing what matters to you personally as an individual, so that's worth more money to the purchaser than having to sit around and do your 5x table again because 80% of the class haven't learned it yet. Not sure that it means the teacher needs to receive more money, but then if it's a direct transfer of funds there isn't anywhere else for it to go!

The Head of Music at the school I teach has done both: private piano teaching while her children were growing up and school teaching since, both in a comprehensive and an independent school. She reckons the one-to-one teaching is far harder work than the classroom teaching, even though she's the sort who throws herself wholeheartedly into the job with choir and orchestra concerts and festivals galore.

I've never done classroom teaching, but I taught workshops to pretty big groups. Not that I want to compare this with a classroom situation, because the people who attend workshops are still usually there out of their own free will

I find though that one-to-one teaching takes up more time and effort. Strange enough, that's exactly what I like, because it is much more individual, I can really concentrate on ONE person. You simply don't get this in a group situation, no matter how hard you try.
If I prepare workshops, they are no-brainers most of the time, and the rest is reacting quickly and thinking on your feet. Completely different from working with one person and really crawling into their brains

I was planning to disagree with something you wrote elsewhere about it being unrealistic to allow a long time to bring pieces up to performance standard for exams (have not got a round to it yet).

But this post is spot-on.

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I guess she would call herself standard, but I call her a triple A top level teacher (Munich, Germany). Pay EUR 40 per hour. James Galway couldn't do it better!

At the moment I don't teach, but I have done both classroom teaching and one-on-one teaching.

I found classroom teaching much more stressful and tirind tiring in a "wears-you-out" sort of way. There is also the conflict to deal with (at least in a state school) are you a government lackey implementing a political agenda or an educator doing the best for the children in your care.

One-on-one is intense, and also tiring - but in different way, and much less stressful.

I suspect more teachers will feel like me than the other way around.

I have done class teaching in both easy and difficult junior schools, class teaching in a very difficult inner city comprehensive, and individual and small group instrumental teaching. All these types of teaching require a lot of time outside pupil contact time. What David says about school teachers not having to bother about the business side is, if we are talking about the financial side, quite right. But there are hours of adminstrative work to do, even for a humble class teacher, and liason with parents and staff and departmental meetings. And 25 to 30 pupils ar a time is just as intense as one or two - more so, I think.

I seem to be one of the lucky ones at the moment. The Association for which I work only pays me 15 euros per hour before deductions. This is 15 euros for pupil contact time regardless of whether it's a group preparing their music option at Baccalaureat level, a nursery class doing musical activities for the very young
or piano, flute or recorder from beginners to Grade 6 - or anything else. I am not paid for the hours of preparation, organisation, concerts, exam days or any thing else - which can even include the cleaning. So if I divide my pay by the number of actual hours I put in the rate would be considerably less than 15 euros.

But I do have the advantages of a small amount of holiday pay and pension contributions and I don't have to work out my own income tax. I just get a cheque and a payslip at the end of the month whereas I imagine people who are self employed have to spend a lot of time sorting out that sort of thing.

My other advantage is that although I teach within an administrative framework, because it's an Association and not a municipal music school I have a free hand on method and content.