Driving Instructor?? Is it worth it???

moneymaker2

Hi All,

I was wondering if we have any driving instructors or partners of driving instructors knocking around on here?

My husband is sick of catering and wants to be come a driving instructor. He realises that it will be a hard flog to get the type of money that we want per annum approx 23k-30k per year as this is something he feels he will enjoy and something that would also help reduce our 80k worth of debt.

I just wanted some insight from someone who has been ''there'' before.

Can anyone help?? Thank you in advance

Laura

izoomzoom

An old work collegue I know did this.

Did all the tests etc, you have 3 chances only, and he didn't pass the last one. He gave up his job a week before his final test, so was really up the creek without a paddle.

Hopefully someone will be along with a success story, although I believe the income projection is, on average, quite exagerated (sp?) ...

moneymaker2

just bumping up

MissEyre

I asked my driving instructor about this when I learned to drive last year-he said you either set up independantly, which can be hugely expensive (petrol costs, insurances, car maintenance etc) or go with one of the big schools (his started with a B and ended with an M) and they charge you for the instructors course and then book lessons for you. His issue was that they were informally guaranteed a certain number of students, but the company makes a lot of money from teaching the instructors and advertised those courses a lot, resulting in tons of qualified instructors in the area, so there was never enough work to go round and keep them all full time, and some of them were pretty upset. Hope that helps.

moneymaker2

He's looking at a company that is similar to the one that you are talking about however there are not many drivers in the area because they are not as big as the start of the alphabet, start of the alphabet and the one starting with a b ending with a m.
He appreciates that it'll be hard work and he doesn't mind that so he will work the 40/50 hour week when its avaliable cause he won't know if his next week is going to be a 20 hour week.
My husbands dad is trying to put him off it and has set him up to talk to his friend about it (But he has set up on his own not with a franchise and his business hasn't taken off too well) this is why I am trying to get lots of advice both positives and negatives before he jumps into anything.

postingalwaysposting

well i asked my present driving instrutor and he said to me ~ if i knew then what i know now i wouldnt have done it. The problem is after you qualify you either have to stay with the school who taught you or you have to pay franchise to another school which costs a bomb. In my driving instructors case he is crying out for pupils as he has a high turnover of passes. Yet sometimes there arnt enough pupils to go around.

beanielou

I think that one of the biggest problems is the time it takes to do the training.
If you have no other job then this can be a big problem as it can take a few months.So you can have quite a long time with no income.
The third exam is very hard to pass & I think you can only sit it twice.

Donedoingdebt

I was an ADI from 1986 to 1994. To be honest, If I had my time again, I wouldn't do it.
He is very unlikely to end up earning anything like the widely advertised figures quoted by firms' adverts ie £30000 PA.
A 40 to 50 hour week as you mentioned, will turn into 50 to 60 hours when travelling time between lessons is accounted for & that's assuming he can get that many pupils.
As MissEyre stated, if he works for a Driving School, the more Instructors they have on their books, the more franchise fees they'll collect. Therefore it's unlikely that he'll ever reach the number of pupils that he requires because they'll take more Instructors on. These fees usually run into several hundreds of pounds per week.
If he starts off on his own as an unknown, it takes a long time (years) to build up a reputation & start receiving recommendations such as younger siblings etc. Also, he'll be competing against the £5 to £10 per hour merchants & at that price, it's very difficult to make a living after your normal outgoings such as car payments, maintenance, fuel, insurance & tax, ADI registration payments etc.
At the 2 times of year when he most needs money (Christmas & summer holidays) half his pupils may stop having lessons because they've got more important things to pay for.
When I started out, I was relatively debt free, but at the end, I was heavily in debt. I certainly wouldn't touch it with a barge pole if I had an £80k debt to start with.

Zebedee69

Hia!

Forget about it... To hard to qualify, too much competition and we all know what happens with too much competition, wages go down.

You'll strugle to re-coup your costs and forget what the company you do it with might say about taking you on once your qualified! Have you ever seen a job advert where you pay 1000's for your training and then that same company gives you a job:rolleyes: Not on my nelly ha ha! Unless your going to Uni to become a nurse/doctor or something!

You can become a courier for far less and earn more money carting boxes about in a Citroen Berlingo:D

mazza1970

My brother is a driving instructor, he has been doing this for about 7-8 years now, he struggled at first, but now because of word of mouth, he is doing very well at the moment, in fact this has been his best year yet since he started.

moneymaker2

Seems like a bit of a long haul tp turn over the good money.
His Mum recommended hgv driver. Only thing is we have a 5 month old and a 5 year old and he would be away driving for a long period i would assume. He would be able to get jobs from anyone tesco's, boots, co-op etc. But would he end up hating the job because of the time away from us??