Very few artists that are new to the scene can sustain themselves by creating music alone. You might need to look for alternative career opportunities in the industry. These come with a stable wage, valuable experience, and networking opportunities. They can also act as a further creative outlet. 

This blog introduces some of the best careers to choose if you are an aspiring musician in London.

Session Musician

Session musicians are the most talented people in music. They are experts at their craft and can apply their musical skills to many instruments for any type of music, live or in the studio.

Being a session musician is perfect if you love creating music. However, you might find the lack of creative input you can provide frustrating.

Established session musicians can earn upwards of £38,000, according to Jooble. But most session musicians are freelance, and you will have to work hard to get to a point where you can get regular work.

Music Teacher

It is much easier to establish yourself as a music teacher if you are an expert at playing instruments. Music teachers give private tuition to adults or children that want to learn an instrument. If you want to teach music, you need to have great communication skills, a good ear, and good classroom management if you want to teach multiple students at once.

You might be put off by the need for a huge amount of patience, but teaching music is a pathway to earning a good living. The average music teacher wage in the UK is £27,405, and MusicTeacher.com recommend you charge £32 per hour.

Sound Engineer or Technician

If you are a music producer, you will already know much about making music sound great in a live setting. All bars, clubs, and venues hosting live music events will need engineers and technicians to ensure the band sounds as good as possible.

Being a sound engineer is an opportunity to learn about live sound production and gain hands-on experience with audio equipment. You might even get to meet artists, which is a fabulous networking opportunity.

According to PayScale.com, the average sound engineer salary in the UK is £25809.

Music Venue Staff

London has a lot of huge music venues, such as the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire. These venues need many staff members to check tickets, search bags and tend the bar. Because of the number of people these venues need to hire, you can generally expect such roles to be less competitive.

Working for a music venue can get you much experience, learning about how live music events are organised and run. You will also be able to watch a great diversity of artists perform, and their stagecraft can inspire you.

However, these positions are often less well-paid, and you are likely to be earning closer to minimum wage if you take such a role.

Networking with All Nighter Studios

Whatever career you choose, make sure you don’t lose sight of making music. These careers offer fantastic networking opportunities to increase your visibility in the industry, but so does All Nighter Studios. We are the perfect location to meet musicians in a similar position, and you are sure to find opportunities to jump on a track or find the perfect collaborator.