To keep printing quality uniform and to improve productivity, while maintaining a heating efficiency and a strength against an external load, provided is a thermal head manufacturing method including: a concave portion forming step of forming a concave portion on one face of a supporting substrate; an upper substrate forming step of forming an upper substrate in which an etching layer and a non-etching layer are arranged in layers in a substrate thickness direction, the etching layer being etched at a predetermined etching rate, the non-etching layer being lower in etching rate than the etching layer; a bonding step of bonding the one face of the supporting substrate in which the concave portion has been formed in the concave portion forming step to a surface on a side of the non-etching layer of the upper substrate; a thinning step of etching the etching layer of the upper substrate which has been bonded to the supporting substrate in the bonding step; and a heating resistor forming step of forming a heating resistor across from the concave portion of the supporting substrate on the upper substrate which has been thinned in the thinning step.