Pre-service middle school mathematics teachers’ descriptions for the metaphors they produced for how they considered themselves as mathematics teachers (actual teacher identities) and how they wanted to be in the future (designated identities) at the end of the third and fourth years of the teacher education programme were analysed via a teacher identity framework focusing on areas of teacher expertise. Participants described their actual teacher identities mostly with the self-referential metaphors in both year levels and expressed the need to improve themselves as mathematics teachers. A hybrid of different expertise areas appeared more in the descriptions of designated teacher identities. There was a decrease in the didactics expert and self-referential metaphors, and an increase in the pedagogical expert and hybrid metaphors from the third year to the fourth year. The increase in the hybrid metaphors revealed that their aim was to become an expert in multiple domains in the future.