The solubility of ZrO2 in rutile is strongly temperature‐dependent and has been identified as a potentially powerful thermometer when the rutile coexists with an appropriate buffer assemblage, e.g. zircon + quartz. In combination with experimental data at 10 kbar, previous consideration of data on natural rutile has not identified a pressure dependence for the thermometer. However, the expected volume change as a result of substitution of the larger Zr4+ cation for Ti4+ suggests that the Zr content of rutile should decrease with increasing pressure. To investigate the pressure dependence of the thermometer, piston cylinder (at 10, 20 & 30 kbar) and 1 atm furnace experiments were performed in the system ZrO2‐TiO2‐SiO2. The solubility of ZrO2 in rutile, in the presence of zircon and quartz was reversed at each pressure value. From these experiments, the thermodynamics of the end‐member reaction ZrSiO4 = SiO2 + ZrO2 (in rutile) have been determined. There is a secondary pressure effect accompanying the primary temperature dependence of the Zr content of rutile. New thermometer equations are, in the α‐quartz field: in the β‐quartz field and in the coesite field in which φ is ppm Zr, P is in kbar and R is the gas constant, 0.0083144 kJ K−1. Thermometric results using these equations are shown for a range of geological settings.