Driving Instructor?? Is it worth it???

Zebedee69

You can get a HGV job 9-5 he could drive for Tesco/Asda doing the home deliveries?... That wouldnt take him far from home (no more than 30 miles) and he would be home every night.

He could start doing local courier work?... Anything further away he gets booked he could sub-contract and still make a few quid off it.

moneymaker2

Thanks Zebedee. Any ideas of where to start looking into this?
He has no licence for this but has been driving for nearly 6 years and only has 3 points on his licence.

Thanks in advance

postingalwaysposting

rog2 does home deliverys for asda. I think he just went through the usuall application in his local asda store. Unsure if they mark points agaisnt you though

pennyfrog

A very good friend of mine is a driving instructor. She'd give me regular progress reports of her own tests and so on- and it really is quite a slog. I think if I mentioned earnings of almost £30k to her, she'd fall on the floor laughing! She's been working full time for 3 years doing this now and has only this year earnt enough to actually pay income tax! (about £200 over). She's got a good clientelle and is always busy.
If you become an instructor for an established school, remember that you'd have to pay fees to them (and they are very high!) and have to earn enough to clear these before you can earn any money for yourself. There's only a very small allowance for holiday time. If you took a few weeks a year, you'd have to earn enough to cover most of the time off, as you'd receive no money. That varies from school to school, of course.
I have to admit, since seeing what she has to do, I wouldn't be in a hurry to recommend it!

basill

My old driving instructor gave it up for a job on the London underground. He now drives a nice luxury motor and spends a lot more on time on holiday in the sun and playing golf! He found alot of competition in our area lowered income and found it hard to book any length of time away from the job as pupils were constantly approaching test dates etc..
His working hours were well spread out with lessons before and after normal working hours and often not much to do in the daytime.
He was independant of a driving school though, it might be easier to via a school?

B

mrtg0525

A few mates of mine have HGV licences and they all assure me that there is a shortage of drivers. Come to think of it, Conor on here also mentioned this... Most of them, even if they have other jobs, keep their licenses current as they all say that they do make a good fallback if you lose your job/need to earn extra money etc.

I think how long you're away from home very much depends on the kind of work you do. I would think that if you're doing stuff like driving a lorry for a local building company or somesuch, you've got pretty regular hours.

Oh, and regarding the driving instructor thing - everybody I know who did or does work as a driving instructor now says that they wouldn't do it again.

In_debt_5

Both my dad and brother are HGV drivers. They do work long hours but rarely stay away from home (1-2 times per year!). They go out around 6am and back about 6:30pm.

They both tell me there is a shortage of drivers in the Midlands.

The cost of the training though is around 1k - 2k though - I think!

jess444_2

Hi,
My OH did the training - took a long time as he could only do weekends as working FT. Failed the last test, and as said earlier it can only be taken 3 times, then you have to start again from the beginning. The money for the course included licence fee, which of course was never paid as he failed. We asked for this back, but was told could not be refunded. Luckily he did not give up his job and has now given up the idea of becoming a Driving Instructor.

MissEyre

Why not look at home delivery driving as one of the previous posters suggested, for Iceland/Tesco/Asda - these jobs are usually advertised in store like a job on the checkouts would be. FYI, he would have to be clear with them if there were certain shifts he couldn't do because of the children, as I know Mr T have a delivery slot which ends at 23.00, so someone has to drive that van! I think there are good ops for overtime though, which might be helpful? Then he could look at HGV driving as a possibility if he was still interested-sounds like the hours are a bit better! :rotfl: And I know agency drivers tend to be able to pick and choose their jobs and hours (round here, anyway), so would def be worth investigating.

The_Undercover_ADI

I've been an instructor for several years now, and most of the advice above is pretty much correct.

It is possible to earn £30k a year as an instructor, but you need to be a real business person and work long long hours for a couple of years at least.

If you want some really good info on becoming an instructor, have a look at the two main ADI forums (adiforum.co.uk and drivertrainingtoday.co.uk). Post a question on either and you'll get good independent(ish) advice.

My homepage has some relevant information on there (if you don't mind me ranting a bit!), and some links to good driving instructor training companies.