---
title: "Art, Drama, and Music Teacher, Postsecondary"
description: "Teach courses in drama, music, and the arts including fine and applied art, such as painting and sculpture, or design and crafts. Includes both teachers…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/art-drama-and-music-teacher-postsecondary"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Art, Drama, and Music Teacher, Postsecondary

**Category:** Educational Instruction and Library · **SOC code:** 25-1121 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 25-1121.00

Teach courses in drama, music, and the arts including fine and applied art, such as painting and sculpture, or design and crafts. Includes both teachers primarily engaged in teaching and those who do a combination of teaching and research.

Also advertised as: Art History Professor; Art Instructor; Art Professor; Assistant Professor; Associate Professor; Instructor; Music Instructor; Music Professor.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $78,620 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** Not published by BLS
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $47,570 to $163,350, with the middle half between $61,620 and $103,850
- **Total US employment:** 93,560
- **Typical entry education:** Master's
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +2.2% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 8,000 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 56/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 93,560 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $47,570 |
| 25th | $61,620 |
| 50th (median) | $78,620 |
| 75th | $103,850 |
| 90th | $163,350 |
| Mean (average) | $94,700 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DE | $103,320 | $103,519 | 150 |
| CA | $99,410 | $89,785 | 9,820 |
| NY | $98,850 | $91,595 | 14,920 |
| VT | $97,980 | $100,022 | 180 |
| RI | $97,580 | $95,405 | 440 |
| DC | $96,900 | $88,170 | 350 |
| MA | $85,820 | $81,148 | 4,960 |
| MD | $85,590 | $81,546 | 1,280 |
| MI | $82,990 | $86,253 | 2,410 |
| NJ | $80,100 | $73,618 | 3,300 |
| GA | $79,870 | $82,945 | 1,910 |
| ME | $79,860 | $82,287 | 340 |
| NH | $79,090 | $75,928 | 440 |
| LA | $78,710 | $89,233 | 720 |
| CT | $78,600 | $75,861 | 1,430 |

35 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 50 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/art-drama-and-music-teacher-postsecondary/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/art-drama-and-music-teacher-postsecondary.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 116,900 in the 2025–2035 base year to 119,500 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 2,600 jobs, or +2.2%. Slower than average: 2.2% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 8,000 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Master's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Master's Degree | 50.7% |
| Doctoral Degree | 31.7% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 13.9% |
| Post-Master's Certificate | 1.6% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 1.4% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 0.7% |

## What the work involves

- Maintain student attendance records, grades, and other required records.
- Prepare students for performances, exams, or assessments.
- Initiate, facilitate, and moderate classroom discussions.
- Keep abreast of developments in the field by reading current literature, talking with colleagues, and participating in professional conferences.
- Plan, evaluate, and revise curricula, course content, course materials, and methods of instruction.
- Participate in campus and community events.
- Prepare course materials, such as syllabi, homework assignments, and handouts.
- Evaluate and grade students' class work, performances, projects, assignments, and papers.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Instructing — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Fine Arts — importance 4.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 4.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Communications and Media — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- History and Archeology — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Expression — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Originality — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Social (S), Artistic (A), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| S — Social | 6.99 |
| A — Artistic | 5.73 |
| I — Investigative | 4.14 |
| R — Realistic | 3.03 |
| C — Conventional | 2.61 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.12 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| INFP | 80.9 |
| ENFP | 80.0 |
| INFJ | 75.4 |
| ENFJ | 70.9 |
| ISFP | 67.1 |

Best-fitting types: INFP, ENFP.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Self-Enrichment Teacher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/self-enrichment-teacher) — median $46,800
- [English Language and Literature Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/english-language-and-literature-teacher-postsecondary) — median $78,760
- [Teaching Assistant, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/teaching-assistant-postsecondary) — median $42,910
- [Area, Ethnic, and Cultural Studies Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/area-ethnic-and-cultural-studies-teacher-postsecondary) — median $85,020
- [Architecture Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/architecture-teacher-postsecondary) — median $96,870
- [Communications Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/communications-teacher-postsecondary) — median $78,580
- [Instructional Coordinator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/instructional-coordinator) — median $77,440
- [Music Director and Composer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/music-director-and-composer) — median $73,710
- [Education Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/education-teacher-postsecondary) — median $75,350
- [Choreographer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/choreographer) — median $55,310

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025–2035 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/art-drama-and-music-teacher-postsecondary