Becoming a Driving instructor

Career teaching Learners to Drive a Car

If you live in the UK, then you would probably seen the current Red Driving School TV advert on one of the many satellite stations encouraging people to become a driving instructor as one on the ways to beat the current economic gloom and be on the way to a new successful career being their own boss and teaching learners to drive.

So you would like to become a driving instructor? Before you resign from your regular 9-5 job or start dreaming about your new career of becoming a potential driving instructor and how much you will earn as a DSA ADI, it is important you note a few facts about life as a driving instructor.

1. Being a driving instructor is not a job, it is a business, and therefore you need to either develop the required skills for some tasks, are be prepared to pay for them. One of the most important skills you need to survive being an instructor is marketing. The success of your driving school business does not solely depend on how good an instructor you are, but on your ability to maintain a steady supply of learner driver pupils who are ready to pay you for your services. This is not an easy task in a very fiercly competitive industry where you have many schools or driving instructors offering cheap lessons.

2. Your driving lesson price is not what you earn as an instructor! Out of the £15, £17, £20 or £25 you charge for 1 hr of driving tuition has to come fuel costs, car leasing or depriciation, vehilcle insurance, marketing, stationary, tax, your earnings. You will also have to think about holidays, as you don't get paid when off work or sick, National Insurance (NI) contributions, pension. So don't just think because a driving instructor charges £25 for a one hour lesson in London, that he or she is going to be a rich individual.

3.

It costs a lot of money to become a driving instructor

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Around £3000, and there is no guarantee you will actually pass all the DSA ADI qualification examinations. The ADI part 3 qualifying test has the lowest pass rate of all, and with only 3 attempts available, it is easy to spend all that money and still end up out of pocket! The only winners are the training organisations, which is why the instructor college and red driving school spend large amounts of money on adverts trying to get people to train to become driving instructors!

4.

Credit Crunch and Becoming a Driving Instructor

There are a lot of adverts around now that the credit crunch is biting hard trying to get people to sign up to becoming a driving instuctor, with compelling copy singing the praises of how you can be your own boss, work the hours you want, with a guaranteed job at the end of your training. Well now is one of the worst times to become a driving instructor, and the only ones to gain if you sign up for one of those ADI training courses, are the companies training people. Don't invest your hard earned money, unless it is something you really want to do, and even then you are going to have a hard time competing with already established businesses.