With many adverts on the television and in the press suggesting that you can earn £30,000 to £40,000 as a driving instructor, it’s worth checking out whether such claims stack up. If you were to survey a significant cross-section of driving instructors, it is unlikely that you would find many that earn in excess of £30,000. However, if you are dedicated, work hard and get a few breaks it can be done.


The average cost of a driving lesson in the UK is around £22. Big national driving schools with national advertising campaigns to pay for may charge you more and a local school may charge less, but £22 is a good average. If an instructor teaches 35 lessons a week at £22 for 48 weeks a year, that makes a whopping £37,000 a year!

However, that does not take into account expenses. If you allow a conservative £2 per lesson for petrol, that’s £3,300 on fuel alone. Then you need to pay for your car. You can arrange a franchise package with the driving school you train with. The published price for a car and headboard franchise with Red Driving School is £185 per week. This includes provision of the car and regular repairs and servicing but not fuel. On an annual basis this comes to approximately £9,600.

So we have £37,000, less £3,300, less £9,600 ie £24,100. Then there are other incidental expenses – adi registration (£300 for four years), administrative and accountancy expenses, any extra advertising if the driving school does not give you enough pupils, car cleaning, stationery and teaching materials, phone expenses etc.

Realistically, for 35 lessons a week you could expect to earn in the region of £22,000 per year. Of course if you want to take extra holiday, need to take sick leave (for which you will get no pay), or simply cannot get enough pupils, your earnings will be less than this. It also needs to be borne in mind that 35 lessons is the equivalent of approximately 40 hours work by the time you have added in travelling time between lessons.

So to earn £30,000 after training as a driving instructor you will need to be willing to work for 45-50 hours per week. It can be done, but there are few instructors that work such long hours on a regular basis.