Music degrees these days tend to be diverse, and it's rare to find any that focus only on classical music. Most have a foundation in basic classical music training, with options to specialise by taking course modules in other areas like jazz, pop and world music.

There are two basic undergraduate degrees in music: BA (Bachelor of Arts) and BMus (Bachelor of Music). The BA offers a broad musical education with the chance to study academic subjects like music history, musicology and other arts subjects; the BMus is performance-focused and the undergraduate degree typically offered by music conservatories.

Conservatories are specialist music training colleges designed to prepare talented musicians for careers as performers. The training they offer is very intense and performance-focused, and they encourage students to get involved with professional work while they are still at college - the Royal College of Music, for example, has a careers wing called the Woodhouse Centre which acts as a booking service for students.

Seven conservatories in the UK are currently members of CUKAS, the Conservatoires Admissions Service: the Royal College of Music and Trinity College of Music, both in London; the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester; Leeds College of Music; the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff; the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow; and Birmingham Conservatoire.

For musicians with their hearts set on performing, conservatories offer an unrivalled opportunity to specialise and focus early on. But they are also very competitive and may limit your options, and for students unsure of which path they want to take, a university degree is usually a better option. Universities offer the chance to mix with students studying other subjects, and should you decide to ditch music altogether later in life, employers will look more favourably on a BA in music from a good university than on specialist performance training.

Going with a university course will not totally scupper your chances of being a performer. Conservatories are happy to accept students with a good first degree (with high marks in the performance modules) for postgraduate performance courses.Many musicians choose to do things this way, getting a broad musical education before going on to specialise at a conservatory. Although there are some exceptions, students with undergraduate degrees from conservatories usually also embark on postgraduate study before hitting the big wide world.

There is, of course, a wealth of other postgraduate options - from vocational courses in arts management and administration to PhDs on anything from harmony in early Bruckner to the role of women in Mozart's operas.

Look around the auditorium at most classical music concerts and you'll notice that 90 per cent of the audience has grey hair. The increasing age of classical music audiences is a serious problem facing the industry, and orchestras and opera companies have had to work hard on audience development and education in a bid to ensure that there will be a next generation of concert-goers.

It's not all doom and gloom, though. Classic FM is the most popular radio station in the UK, with 6m listeners;. When the BBC offered visitors to its website access to free Beethoven downloads last year, 1m people jumped at the chance. The emergence of digital music has been great news for classical music!

You've heard it all before, but the chances of making it as a solo performer are pretty slim - even if you're very, very talented. Only the best musicians make it to conservatory level and, of those, only a fraction go on to sustain careers as solo performers. Statistics show that only 5 per cent of music college graduates go on to sustain careers as solo performers.

More realistic is a career as an orchestral musician - but again, this is very competitive, especially if you play a popular woodwind or brass instrument. It might sound like the ideal lifestyle to spend your evenings performing music you love and your days watching GMTV or going shopping, but the reality is much more brutal. Think six hours a day or more practising and learning new repertoire; antisocial hours and little time to spend with your family; and as for the shopping trips, you can forget it - expect a starting salary of around £16,000.

Full-time orchestra places are few. It's more likely you'make a living from freelancing and session work, often combined with teaching. This is known as a 'portfolio career'.

You don't need any formal qualifications to teach music privately, and it's a popular source of income for professional musicians and students alike. All you need to do is decide how much your services are worth, stick an ad up in your local supermarket and get yourself some pupils. The advantage of teaching privately is that you can work from home and choose your own hours, but it is advisable to set up some sort of a contract - if one of your pupils, for example, starts skipping lessons regularly, you'll be left with no beer money and not a leg to stand on.

Many schools also hire private teachers contractually. This means you're guaranteed a certain wage and number of pupils, but it is also less flexible and you can't choose your own hours.

If you want to be a full-time classroom music teacher, you'll need an undergraduate music degree and a PGCE. Many universities offer postgraduate music teaching courses - the Royal Northern College of Music, for example, runs a PGCE in Music with Specialist Strings Teaching.

The Musicians' Union recommends charging between £22 and £35 an hour for private lessons, depending on your experience and qualifications. As a full-time music teacher in a school you'll start on £13,500-£16,500.

It's not half as dull as it sounds. Behind-the-scenes jobs in classical music are many and varied, and it's a small and friendly industry to work in. There's a sense that everyone is in it together to try and keep classical music alive, and most people working in the industry are musicians themselves.

Orchestras and music festivals give rise to a number of different jobs in areas like marketing and PR, fundraising, librarianship, finance, and general administration. You don't usually need specific qualifications for these, but you're also not likely to get one without being prepared to work for free first. Most orchestras and many festivals offer unpaid (or poorly paid) internships to recent graduates, and if you can get your foot in the door with one of these there's usually a good chance it will lead to paid work afterwards.

Other companies always on the look-out for graduates with a knowledge of classical music include record labels (from giants like EMI Classics and Naxos through to small, independent labels like Hyperion or Harmonia Mundi), artist management agencies (think wining and dining famous classical artists, keeping their diaries for them, polishing their shoes…) and sheet music publishers, where you'll often get to work closely with top composers - and go to lots of free concerts.

Another option is PR. A lot of arts organisations these days hire external companies to do this for them, a trend that's led to the emergence of a number of successful music and arts PR agencies. Music PR is a great career for someone sociable, lively and personable, and will get you loads of good contacts and free concert tickets - but it can also be stressful putting up with all those demanding journalists, and often involves late nights and weekends.

If you want to be a music critic or journalist, the best path is an undergraduate music degree followed by a postgraduate diploma in journalism. Cardiff University and City University offer two of the country's most respected journalism courses. And get as much writing experience as you can on the student newspaper or anywhere else - music magazines are more likely to hire a journalist without a music degree than a musician without any journalism experience.

All jobs in classical music are competitive, and unless you manage to land a major record deal or a post as conductor of a top orchestra it's unlikely that you'll ever make serious money. The industry can be insular and cliquey, and the importance of networking and making good contacts can't be stressed enough - it's this that will get you jobs. But if you want to spend your days immersed in something you love and working in a small and friendly industry where everyone knows each other, the jobs are there for those who want them badly enough.