In creative higher education (HE) undergraduate courses in the UK, women students are over-represented by a proportion of two-to-one. However, music HE shows almost the reverse gender balance, with women students under-represented. This article, theorising HE as hierarchically stratified according to institutional prestige, uses descriptive analysis of data on all students in UK music HE between 2016 and 2020 to explore how gender inequalities intersect with institution type across different levels of study. The analysis shows that older, more prestigious institutions have a more equal gender balance. However, these degree programmes may be less likely to equip students with the digital skills needed for music industry careers. Furthermore, women of colour and working-class women are doubly marginalised: excluded from prestigious HEIs where white, middle-class women predominate, and from newer HEIs where men are over-represented. At the PGT level, gender inequalities vary across institution types. Finally, among postgraduate researchers, women remain under-represented.