Being a driving instructor

[yellowdenimbeige]

I'm thinking of becoming a driving instructor.

For various reasons I need something flexible and that I can control the hours. I'm not the main earner so not looking for full time etc.

Everything I've seen is negative. But people do need to learn to drive so someone must be doing it - does everyone hate it and lose money??

Any advice welcome.

One of my neighbours does it but they have their own school and employ a few other instructors. Judging by the car they drive when they aren’t teaching I’d say they do ok

What have you seen that's negative? I'm training to do this at the minute. It's the big companies that you need to watch out for. They offer cheap training but you have to sign your soul away once you instruct for them.

DH has been an instructor nearly 16 years. Very flexible which was great when DS was little and I was working. He loves being his own boss and deciding what hours & days to work.

As PP has said, best not to train with the big companies as a franchise. They take their fee even if you're not earning anything. That's how people lose money. And they're very pushy.

Business started slowly but word of mouth reputation has seen him get pupils & build up a good client list.

Call up local instructors and ask if they offer training. I went with a large ish company called smart drive and you can give 28 days notice that you aren't joining them which was something like £200 a week including car. I have a small local franchisee lined up and I purchased a suitable car myself.

An issue with covid and franchises is that some have insisted that payments continue when instructors can't work. Something to consider.

Over the years, I've had a number of clients who were driving instructors. Every single one who was with one of the large firms/franchises regretted it due to the fees, lack of flexibility, etc. The few who were happy learned independently and bought their own cars, did their own marketing etc. Local word of mouth is the best form of advertising, and that helps you to choose your own type of client and your own working hours, i.e. once you get one sixth former, you do the sessions either before or after school, and assuming you do it right, you get their friends too, so you end up busy early morning and late afternoon (and maybe a day at weekends if it suits you). If you want more mature pupils, then you'd get referrals from school mums (who'd normally want lessons during the day during school hours), etc etc.

Thanks,

Yes - tons of negativity read on the net and lots of conflicting info

Doing it yourself:

• You'll never get any clients and takes years to build up a base by which time you've lost your house etc
• You need to be good at running a business and have to spend hours of time dealing with accountancy / marketing etc which isn't paid so your income is peanuts
• It costs a fortune in cars / repairs / changing cars every 2 years.
• only crap people go it alone to begin with and everyone should be in a franchise for the first 2 years

Franchise

• costs a fortune and you might not get clients and by the time you realise you'll have lost your house
• only crap, stupid people go into franchise
• you'll get ripped off

Generally, being a driving instructor is

• crap, wouldn't pick it again
• everyone leaves after a year
• there's no work
• bad for your health and you'll get fat

I was really excited about the opportunity as I've come into a small pot of money which I could put to the training and I've always liked the idea but after spending the day researching, I feel totally flat and like the whole thing is a big con! (But I also know that normal people do want to learn to drive so how is it such as big waste of time and money....)

I say go for it, another advantage is your (presumably) being a woman. Lots of people prefer women teachers (me included). Also if you’re very patient, advertise for nervous learners

How long from thinking about it to passing and working does it take? I've seen from a few months to a few years....

It took DH about a year all told, learning around his day job. The hardest part for him was the Part 3 - the assessment of teaching. He passed on his third & last attempt.

@iklboo thanks, yes that's another worry - it's a lot of money to invest in hours of training to then fail and you only have a couple of chances.

I'd say give it a go. My husband has been doing it for 6 years after getting made redundant from his office job. It took a year or so to build up a decent number of customers/hours and at the start he was charging slightly below market rate to get customers.

He was super lazy at marketing but after about a year he was probably clocking up 25-30 hours of lessons a week which probably equates to a full time job once you factor in the driving to clients as well. Since covid it's been more like 30-35 and probably could be more but I have to put my foot down for family time.

It is flexible around childcare to a degree but he tends to be busier from 3pm until 7pm with the after school crowd so not great if you want to pick your own kids from school. He is almost always available for morning school run though. Also school holidays can be a bit quieter typically so he can afford to take some time off then to look after DD which is great as I work FT myself. He does quite often work a day at the weekend so limits family time a bit.

He's never going to make a fortune from it, but he enjoys being his own boss and being able to dictate his hours to a degree. I'm the main breadwinner though so we can afford for him to have a job with a less predictable income, and he had his redundancy payment to tide him over until business picked up.

I think if you can afford to set yourself up, market yourself well and set an attractive price with good initial offers to attract customers then you should be able to build up a business slowly without involving the big companies. Then what you earn is yours. If you need to start with a reasonable income straight away then that might be trickier.