Becoming A Driving Instructor?

vickyjayne

HI all, my husband is thinking of becoming a driving instructor and was wondering if any one has any experience with regards to the training, whos good and whos not so good, also total price with different trainers
He has been looking at a company called LDC, does anyone know if they are any good?
www.learnerdriving.com is the link
Thanks

lucid2008

I had a friend with BSM who paid between £2,500-£3,000 for the course and he was earning £145 day and they provided the car. Beware there is a lot of companies out there who promise the earth saying they will get you clients so you will pay for the course.

Browntoa

and to earn the top money you have to do all the unsocial hours , late evenings ,all weekends etc

lucid2008

Forgot to add he was working 7 days a week all hours.

jessicamb

I have a family member who is a driving instructor - it is very hard work to make decent money doing it. The adverts promise £30k of earnings a year but in my experience to get to this you would need to be teaching 35 hours a week + which does not include travelling time to and from the lessons. From this you also have to deduct the cost of your car lease, petrol and other expenses.

Smamfer

2 people i know gave up full time well paid jobs to do this thinking they could chose their hours more.. but actually ended up working more and earning less.

vickyjayne

thanks everyone for replies.
Hours are not a problem as he no longer has any other commitments.
Does anyone that is trained have any preference as to which company is cheapest but still train you well

Quimby

I trained with the AA, and passed all the tests first time, but really the quality of the training is down to the individual trainer.

I established a great rapport with my instructor, and we both recognised that I wasn't ready for my Part 3 test (where your ability to teach is assessed) after the 40 hours of training I had paid for were used, so we agreed to carry on working with me paying his standard learner rates, rather than the higher 'driving instructor' rates.

Be very careful about what the various training companies offer - I found that 1 to 1 training was much better for me, rather than classroom work or sharing the car with another trainee (that's how a lot of schools offer cheaper prices, by allocating 1 trainer to multiple pupils to cut costs)

Essentially, read all the small print before signing up to anything, as once you have signed a contract, you may find it very hard to get any refunds if your husband decides the course is not for him

He will realistically need about £3000 - £4000 for training fees, and up to 18 months hard work to qualify. It's a phenomenally hard course, with 3 tests (theory, practical driving and ability to teach, all having pretty tough pass criteria) and many people drop out either because they fail the tests, or decide it's not actually for them

However with a lot of hard work and the right attitude, once qualified it is a great job - but you can't earn a fortune - I've been doing this for about 9 months and have no regrets, but the hours are long and unsociable.

You need to realise that although you can maybe take up to £30k a year in revenue, (if you work 8 hours a day 7 days a week with no holiday) at least half of that will need to be paid out in franchise fees/car running costs/petrol/insurance/advertising/tax

I hope your husband makes a decision that's right for him

baby.boo_2

I can understand why so many of the driving instructors i deal with have 2nd jobs now.

The majority of them trained through AA or BSM these seem to be favourites amongst them.

Kazby

Hi Vickyjayne,

Please think long and hard about this before you make the leap!! My partner has just spent a year retraining to escape from driving instruction (he's been in the business 11 years). Last year he made just 7K after the costs of the business were taken off his earnings.

Look carefully at the number of driving instructors in your area - there are only so many people who will want to learn to drive and we noticed last year a lot of people were putting it off unless they had to as their budgets were squeezed.

Also - the driving instructors school in our area trains trainers with no regard to whether they will be able to find work after they are finished - they make their money by training you to drive, after that you're on your own. We were also massively affected by last year's hikes in petrol prices.

My partner worked for a driving school for his first two years then established his own business. If you go down this route then there's no sick pay, no holiday pay etc which got really painful. Also, at some of the tightest times of the year - such as Xmas - pupils (who are fickle creatures) would cancel lessons to pay for festive gifts and frolics. When it was good it was really good and we tried to save hard for when it was bad but for us it just didn't work out. And then bits of the car would break (despite getting a new one every couple of years).

When it's bad it gets really bad. The hours my partner had to work to survive as an instructor have cost him his first marriage and his credit record. On the other hand - when it's good it can be really good! We met him when I was learning to drive!

I could ramble on and on but I guess at the end of the day the best advice I would draw from our experience is put your business head on and think about it... is the market already swamped in your area? Are people in your area going to be putting money towards learning to drive or struggling in our current climate? Can your relationship cope with one of you being out on the road Monday to Sunday all hours? Or with someone who is at home Mon-Fri because there's no work and out all weekend trying to recoup the losses? Will you be able to cope if the cost of petrol goes up etc. Good luck with the decision!!

hissingsid

http://www.squidoo.com/driving_instructors

A website written by someone who runs a small and honest independent driving school. It gives you all the info you need to know before deciding whether or not to become a driving instructor.