List of Doctor Who composers

This is a list of composers for science fiction television series Doctor Who. It is sortable by a number of different criteria. The list defaults to ascending alphabetical order the composer's last name.

History

The Doctor Who theme music was composed by Ron Grainer and initially arranged by Delia Derbyshire of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Various composers subsequently arranged it for later versions of the theme.

In the classic series, each serial's director chose the freelance composer for the incidental music in the serial. Some directors chose to use stock music or special soundscapes from the Radiophonic Workshop instead of specially composed music as a cost cutting measure. During the 1970s, the incidental composer primarily associated with the programme was Dudley Simpson, composing most of the decade's music. When John Nathan-Turner became producer of Doctor Who in 1980, he decided that the music needed to be updated, and took Simpson out for a meal telling him how much he appreciated his work on Doctor Who but that it would no longer be required as he intended to have the BBC Radiophonic Workshop provide music from that point. While Simpson was contracted to score Shada, the unfinished nature of that production meant he never started work. As a result, his last broadcast work on Doctor Who was for The Horns of Nimon.

The 1980s saw the music composition brought in house at the BBC by various members of the Radiophonic Workshop, before transitioning back to freelance composers at the end of the original series's run. This decade saw a more heavy use of synthesizers than before.

John Debney was chosen to score the 1996 TV movie, and he achieved this together with his proteges Louis Febre and John Sponsler.

The revived series' scores were entirely composed by Murray Gold for the first ten series. Gold utilised a score created with first with orchestral samples for Series 1, and later with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales from Series 2 onwards; with heavy use of leitmotifs for characters such as the Doctor, the companions and monsters. Gold's music was played at the Proms, such as for the 50th anniversary celebration. Several singers performed in the soundtracks of these series, for instance, Neil Hannon in "Song for Ten". However, the programme had previously had a singers - The Gunfighters featured Lynda Baron singing "The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon" composed by Tristram Cary in 1966 and Delta and the Bannermen featured "The Lorells", a fictional group created by the show's incidental music composer Keff McCulloch in 1987.

Segun Akinola replaced Gold for the duration of the Thirteenth Doctor's run. Akinola's scores tended to be more ambient than Gold's, with a great variety of instruments for different episodes.

In April 2023, it was announced that Gold would again join Doctor Who as composer.

Doctor Who composers

Composer	No. stories	First date	First story	Last date	Last story
	24	2018	"The Woman Who Fell to Earth"	2022	"The Power of the Doctor"
Template:Efn	3	1988	The Greatest Show in the Galaxy	1989	The Curse of Fenric
	1	1964	The Aztecs	1964	The Aztecs
	3	1970	Doctor Who and the Silurians	1975	Revenge of the Cybermen
Template:Efn	1	1965	The Time Meddler	1965	The Time Meddler
	2	1975	Terror of the Zygons	1976	The Seeds of Doom
Template:Efn	8	1963	The Daleks	1972	The Mutants
	1	1964	The Dalek Invasion of Earth	1964	The Dalek Invasion of Earth
Template:Efn	7	1972	The Sea Devils	1986	Terror of the Vervoids
	1	1996	Doctor Who	1996	Doctor Who
	1	1996	Doctor Who	1996	Doctor Who
Template:Efn	4	1983	The King's Demons	1985	The Mark of the Rani
	5	1986	The Mysterious Planet	1989	Survival
		2005	"Rose"	—	—
	1	1968	The Invasion	1968	The Invasion
	1	1986	Mindwarp	1986	Mindwarp
Template:EfnTemplate:Efn	4	1968	The Wheel in Space	1969	The Krotons
Template:EfnTemplate:Efn	9	1980	The Leisure Hive	1985	The Two Doctors
	2	1965	The Romans	1966	The Savages
	3	1963	An Unearthly Child	1964	The Sensorites
Template:EfnTemplate:Efn	8	1980	Meglos	1984	Frontios
Template:Efn	8	1981	The Keeper of Traken	1985	Revelation of the Daleks
Template:Efn	6	1987	Time and the Rani	1989	Battlefield
	1	1964	The Reign of Terror	1964	The Reign of Terror
Template:Efn	1	1985	Timelash	1985	Timelash
	1	1965	The Myth Makers	1965	The Myth Makers
	62	1964	Planet of Giants	1980	The Horns of Nimon
	1	1996	Doctor Who	1996	Doctor Who

Stock music

Instead of using specially composed music, some serials were scored completely with pre-recorded stock music. Some of these serials used music by one composer as noted below:

• The Edge of Destruction
• The Web Planet - Music by Les Structures Sonores
• The Space Museum
• Galaxy 4 - Music by Les Structures Sonores
• Mission to the Unknown - Music by Trevor Duncan
• The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve - Music by Pierre Arvay
• The War Machines
• The Tenth Planet
• The Highlanders
• The Moonbase
• The Faceless Ones
• The Tomb of the Cybermen
• The Enemy of the World - Music by Béla Bartók
• The Web of Fear
• Inferno

Spinoff composers

Composer	Spinoff title(s)
	Wartime, Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans, P.R.O.B.E. (The Zero Imperative, The Devil of Winterborne, Unnatural Selection, Ghosts of Winterborne)
	The War Between the Land and the Sea
	Mindgame, Mindgame Trilogy
	An Adventure in Space and Time
	K9
	Torchwood
	White Witch of Devil's End
	White Witch of Devil's End
	The Sarah Jane Adventures (theme tune), Torchwood (theme tune and incidental music)
	Dr. Who and the Daleks, Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.
	K-9 and Company
	Downtime
	K-9 and Company (theme tune), Downtime
	K9 (theme tune)
	Auton Trilogy, Dæmos Rising, Zygon: When Being You Just Isn't Enough, Sil and the Devil Seeds of Arodor
	Dr. Who and the Daleks
	Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.
	Class
	Downtime
	P.R.O.B.E. (When to Die)
	K-9 and Company (theme tune)
	The Sarah Jane Adventures
	The Sarah Jane Adventures, Tales of the TARDIS