How The System Works
Driving instructors are self-employed. If they don't work, they don't earn - simple as that.
Even instructors who work for local or national driving schools are self-employed. They usually work for the school on a franchise basis - that is, they pay a weekly fee to the school and, in return, the school gives them certain benefits, such as work and a car! But, just as with independent instructors, if they don't have work, they are not earning.
So, you see, filling their diary each day with pupils is vital if they are to survive - particularly if they have a mortgage and kids. They have to pay all their own costs such as fuel and they had to pay for the courses to qualify as an instructor - usually thousands of pounds. In addition, the fee they may have to pay to their driving school can be as much as £350 per WEEK! So, in many cases, when they look at you, they are seeing pound signs - don't forget that.
Now, if an instructor is paying £350 per week franchise fee plus £100 per week fuel, he needs to earn £450 before he earns anything to actually take home. At a lesson rate of £25 per hour that's 18 hours. Allow travel time between lessons and that's about 27-28 hours of work just to break even.
Again allowing for travel time between lessons, an average forty hour week at the above rates is going to earn the instructor something in the region of £200 take home.
So, how does he increase his earnings? The obvious one is by increasing his hours - working evenings, weekends. Some instructors become ludicrously tired. There are other tricks they use to increase their income - I'll tell you about those under the heading 'bad instructors'.
Another way would be to increase his fees. But it's a very competitive business and many instructors are having to reduce fees rather than put them up.
The result of all this is an industry packed with over-worked, under paid instructors. Even worse, really good instructors often become disillusioned and leave.
Who regulates all this? Not surprisingly, there is a government agency blessed with the task of assessing and appointing driving instructors. It's an important responsibility the government takes very seriously and is carried out by the same agency that sets and carries out your learner driving test - the DSA, Driving Standards Agency.
Read on to learn something very surprising about the DSA.
