Approved Driving Instructor Training

squeaky

Still reading.

I can't find any grants, and both approaches to govt type funding (Reed via the job centre, and the skill centre [gov uk]) are talking about loans which, in the end, would be OK'd (or not) by a bank.

Har har, har de har. My chances of a bank loan in the current economic climate while on benefits with zero collateral and no other income must be somewhere between microscopic and zero. There's no way I could take on a loan anyway because if it all fell through I'd be stuck with absolutely no means of paying it back.

Not that I've received the information packs from either of those two outfits yet.

Ho hum.

The_Undercover_ADI

Hopefully you've got yourself involved with the forums, there's guys on there with a lot more information than me, so they may be able to help.

As far as I know there's no actual grants for training, but the loans are available to some as they are backed by the government (career development loans) to a certain extent (not sure how much).

As I've mentioned - avoid the big guys if you possibly can. They simply cannot provide the quality or the backup. Due to their franchises, the best instructors always leave once they're established, and the best trainers know they can earn a lot more when independent, which means that they are staffed (in the main - there are exceptions) by inexperienced or ineffective trainers.

Ask in the forums for recommendations, then research them thoroughly. The likelihood is you will get a much better (by miles) trainer that way than through the big companies. If you don't, you won't be tied in to £3k's worth of training with them, so will be free to leave.

crouchend62

I trained to qualify as an ADI back in the late 90s. I got as far as I could do without actually passing - Part Three 4/6 and 3/6. Had I got two 4 out of 6s I would have qualified as those were the pass marks back in those days.


I found the Part One exam relatively straightforward in passing and did so first time. You must put the study in to make it so. I'd do about three to four hours of reading in the daytime (I was working part-time in the evening while I studied) and purchased (not cheap) copies of exam questions to test myself with. There have obviously been some additions to what's required for the Part One nowadays, but essentially, the same rules about disciplined study and preparation still applies. It took me three months of study before I felt ready to put in for it.

Part Two was not at all easy. It would be strange if it was. The standard of driving to pass it required was understandably extremely high. I paid for about 20 two hour driving sessions around Northampton (where I took the test) before putting in a test date. The ADI teaching me was a family friend and charged me £20 per lesson, which still added up to quite a sum in the end. I passed the Part Two first time. My view is that most drivers (however skilled) would stand no chance of passing this exam without paying for good training beforehand. I trained for this exam for a total of about five months, having one lesson with my trainer per week and driving round Northampton on my own to get to know the road system there as well as I could.

Part Three was ultimately my undoing. I am not alone in this as the vast majority of people to reach the final stage fail it also. The exam will certainly find out those unable to put their instructional techniques into practice. No books will help you apply effective learning methods if they are in reality beyond you. Again, I found that having as much training preparation as you can reasonably afford to pay for was crucial to becoming even remotely prepared for what the exam expects of you. When I took the exam, the examiner played the role of the pupil and I assume this is still the same today. My personal downfall was en route back to the test centre. Essentially, I'd done all the hard work (as the examiner later told me during a feedback meeting) and was about half a mile away from passing. Then, the examiner encountered a cyclist on the right hand side and got close enough to the cyclist to expect me to correct him. Unfortunately, I failed to act upon the error, and hey ho, 18 months or so of very hard work and about £1500 on books, training, exams etc. was out the window. I spent about six to eight months training for the Part Three. I opted just to prepare for it in practical terms with my trainer, rather than go for the trainee licence option. Whether I was wrong to go for it that way, who knows.

I have often considered having another crack at the training as it remains a sort of 'unfinished business' situation for me having come so close to passing previously. I've seen the £30k per year ads on TV and happy looking instructors saying they run the job around their personal lives. It is all so tempting - particularly for those who've never gone down the route before.

The reality of being a driving instructor is somewhat different from what the glossy adverts tell you. As I said earlier, my trainer was a good friend, so I saw at close hand how hard he had to work to make a decent living at the job. His weekends weren't his own. He had to be there at the times his pupils required him to be and not when he felt like it. With travel to appointments and lesson preparation, he was putting in around 60 hours of his time per week to get back about 40 hours money. Some weeks he had those hours, others he was scratching around for new pupils. In the end, he couldn't wait to diversify away from the bog standard type learner driver work and move in the more corporate driver training and refresher stuff. He gave the role up completely to become an examiner and said it was the best move he ever made for himself because he went back to regular office type hours, with a regular salary, holiday and sick pay.

These days, I guess training is going to cost you from around £1500 to about £3000, depending on whether you use one of the bigger schools, or a smaller operation. If you do qualify and want the pupils found for you, you are probably looking at around £250 to £300 per week as a franchise fee with the likes of BSM or the AA. So you are going to have to make at least that, plus your petrol costs before you make anything at all. Alternatively, you can start off on your own to avoid these charges, but you need to take into account you'll have zero reputation and will probably have to significantly undercut what the AA etc. charge per lesson to try attracting business. You will also have to face the cost of the school car, dual controls, signage, training aids, etc. etc. etc. and keeping it on the road running costs to incur and have to pay for your insurance by electing to run your own school, so franchise and going alone each come with their own particular set of advantages/disadvantages.

To come away with £30,000 to be taxed on is no easy task. It is going to mean a lot of hours in the car, working the times others are at home enjoying their leisure time. Do the maths (what these ads don't do) and you'll see making that kind of money is not easy.

Of course, there's plenty of plus points in being a driving instructor. The satisfaction of getting a person through their test surely cannot be beaten and high grade instructors who do diversify into other fields of driver training can earn very good money, but you do need to seriously weigh up the many pitfalls and disadvantages of the work before financially committing yourself to a potential career journey the vast majority of those also choosing to do so fail to complete.

The £30k per year type commercials are very cleverly done and set to pull in people who'd see £30k per annum (a good, but not a fantastic wage for many these days and certainly not brilliant money for a job requiring so many skills and so many pressures at times) as aspirational money. Unemployed/unwaged people with some savings and those on relatively low incomes are going to be tempted to either borrow or stump up a significant amount of money with absolutely no guarantee of success in terms of passing what are some very difficult exams or what they will regularly earn if they do. Doing the job part-time for somebody recently retired and on a company pension, say, or perhaps combining the role with their current job is probably ideal, so you are not having to rely on the job as your bread and butter income.