Part time job - driving instructor

Boopy07

Hi everyone,

I am looking to boost our household income as like most, we are being squeezed with tax hikes and cost of living, and am looking into training as a driving instructor. I can see the financial and time commitment that I am fine with, as long as I get some ROI as quite frankly, it looks "too good to be true". I assume if you hold a franchise type agreement with the likes RED or the AA that they take a percentage of all customer fees, but it looks like quite a god way to work flexibly around my existing self employment and make some money.

Has anyone done this and could offer insight?

Many thanks and happy new year.

[Deleted User]

Boopy07 said:

Hi everyone,

I am looking to boost our household income as like most, we are being squeezed with tax hikes and cost of living, and am looking into training as a driving instructor. I can see the financial and time commitment that I am fine with, as long as I get some ROI as quite frankly, it looks "too good to be true". I assume if you hold a franchise type agreement with the likes RED or the AA that they take a percentage of all customer fees, but it looks like quite a god way to work flexibly around my existing self employment and make some money.

Has anyone done this and could offer insight?

Many thanks and happy new year.

Hello, just browsing and I saw this.

Its not much of an insight but I do know of someone who started up as a driving instructor after being an odd job man for years, but he works for himself/promotes as himself and not for any larger company.

He's been doing it for 5 or 6 years now so must be making ends meet. I don't know if he needed to pass any exams as such and how it works insurance wise I don't know but I do see him pass by quite a lot so you don't necessarily have to affiliate with anybody.

soolin

I know of some people who have trained but have not gone ahead as the final costs were quite high, so I have concerns about your 'part time' bit in the heading.

Before signing up for any schemes (and my relative paid £2000 for an accredited scheme which included the cost of the 1st try at the license) and that was before the pandemic, I'm not sure how much it now costs to try for the instructor license.. The real cost, and the reason for the decision not to go ahead was the car lease costs, he had decided to affiliate to a company and they arranged a leased car with dual control , insurance and the deal included a replacement car if his own leased car was off the road at all so that lessons didn't have to be cancelled. The cost of admin, lease, insurance etc covered several days work before there was even any profit for the hours worked.

If you were thinking of going alone then check out costs of leasing a dual control car, and the costs of getting an instructors license. 

soolin

Found this on the Gov.uk site Approved driving instructor (ADI) fees - GOV.UK

Plus a quick google shows it is fairly easy to lease a dual control car - but to get the reasonable montly cost you would need to commit for 36 months.

Driving Instructor Dual Control Car Leasing | Lease World

Remember as well you need regular servicing and checks , fuel and insurance etc (check out business insurance as it is not cheap for a driving instructor as the risks of needing to claim are high) . Factor in the fact you won't get sick leave, or holiday pay if you work for yourself and people tend to book lessons in the evening and weekends so make sure that suits your lifestyle. 

Lastly it's worth checking what the cost of a lesson is in your area as they can start as low as £25 per lesson.