Times are tight for many people but for those with redundancy money or savings that they are willing to invest in an ‘alternative career’, then the constant barrage of advertising from organisations such as the “Instructors’ College” (on billboards and in the printed press) or from “Red” (on the Discovery channels), (amongst others not specifically mentioned) could seem appealing.

However. All is not what it seems.

For those not aware of the name, John Farlam is a well known, and respected, name in the field of ADI training.

Being on his mailing list, and don’t ask me why I recently received the following which may serve as a salutary warning to anyone considering such a venture.

Reproduced with permission of the author.

I am e-mailing following a request from the Trevor McDonald programme on ITV. This may be of particular interest to you if you are undertaking ADI training, or have had training in the past, with one of the larger UK training companies.

If the issues affect or have affected you, you can help others and the driver training industry in general by responding to this message (please respond directly to ITV mentioning that you were contacted by John Farlam at SmartDriving). As anyone who knows me well will tell you, I am passionate about ‘cleaning up’ the UK instructor training (and development) industry - this is a great opportunity for instructors to have a voice.

ITV1 is making a programme about the different ways that people are spending their redundancy money.

They are looking for people who have spent their redundancy on training to become a driving instructor, but it has not worked out as they hoped. These are likely to be newly qualified instructors who are struggling to make ends meet, or those who have invested their money but who’ve failed the exam.

Maybe you are frustrated by the promise of qualifying in a certain period and its taking much longer. Maybe you are close to giving up altogether and are facing huge debt. or possibly you have already given up. Maybe you have now recovered from problems caused by poor training but would still like to have an opportunity to help others to ‘see the light’.

ITV would like to hear from anyone who has invested their redundancy in this new career and has had a bad and costly experience trying to fulfill their dream.

If you’d like to find out more ITV would love to hear from you. Please e-mail Emily Burndred: emily.burndred@itv.com or call on 0161 952 0993.

If you are affected by training issues and would like advice you can e-mail me: john@smartdriving.co.uk

Best wishes

John Farlam

Hopefully, none here will fall into any of the categories mentioned but, if anyone were to consider such an avenue for a future source of income, then the warnings are not to be ignored.

This can stay here for a few days but will probably get moved to the Health & Family forum.

Could the same argument be put forward for those spending redundancy money on LGV training

As a former ADi my advice to anyone would be think again, yes you get to drive around in a late registered car and most of the time you will be your own boss. BUT there are lots of ADI’s out there willing to cut your throat for the business.
Anyone who chooses this all I can say is best of luck…you will need it…

I trained with the biggest national driving school. Brand new corsa every 6 months, own boss etc.

Franchise was £280.00 per week and I averaged about 22 hours work a week at £16.00 per hour. Don’t forget you have got fuel costs to come out of that and you pay your own tax and ni and your franchise.

Yes I really earned that little!! My wife supported us until I got my Green badge and needless to say then I was off.

Worked alone for several years. Best year I had was £14,000. Worst year about £8,000. Not much of a return when you consider I spent nearly £2,000 to qualify.
Nothing like the £30,000 the adverts boast is it ?

A bloke I trained with and kept in touch with, lost his house, his marriage and ended up with colossal debts. Last time I saw him he was back trucking, tramping around Scotland.

I read in a driving instructor magazine about 3 years ago that there were 30,000 instructors on the DSA’s register (cars) and only enough work full time work for 14000.

Those thinking of Driving Instruction as a new career- You’ve been warned!

It’s going to be the same sort of scenario as with the HGV Driver shortage.

Could the same argument be put forward for those spending redundancy money on LGV training

No because in normal times, ie, no recession you are very likely to find agency work at least using your LGV licence…

Smee:
Could the same argument be put forward for those spending redundancy money on LGV training

No because in normal times, ie, no recession you are very likely to find agency work at least using your LGV licence…

I would say that spending money on LGV training in any climate is a risk for newbies, the same as for newly qualified ADIs - once fully established then it becomes different for both - or am I missing something

ROG:

Smee:
Could the same argument be put forward for those spending redundancy money on LGV training

No because in normal times, ie, no recession you are very likely to find agency work at least using your LGV licence… [/quo

I would say that spending money on LGV training in any climate is a risk for newbies, the same as for newly qualified ADIs - once fully established then it becomes different for both - or am I missing something

Yes Smee that’s true. My brand new training vehicle spent most of its time camped in Samworth’s car park. I was lucky to have an LGV licence to fall back on.

Yes Rog, it is a risk for newbies in any climate. I too had to get over the 2 year hurdle like anybody else and that’s when there was a demand for drivers.

As for ADIs; if by getting fully established you mean working 35 hours plus, that is virtually impossible whatever the climate. I Refer back to my original post about 30,000 instructors on the register and there being enough custom to give 14,000 of them a chance of full time work.

In Leicester & Hinckley where I worked as an ADI it is widely accepted that the Driver training market (cars) is saturated.
Of those instructors that are seemingly ‘making it’ ,it is surprising how many are working second jobs particularly Lgv agency work.

I’m sure where you live Rog you will notice the large numbers of training vehicles. I know because I was one of them.

migs69:
I’m sure where you live Rog you will notice the large numbers of training vehicles. I know because I was one of them.

Oh yes, I live just off Bennion Road - the chicanes are a ‘treat’ for car learners and an especially big treat for LGV learners

ROG:

migs69:
I’m sure where you live Rog you will notice the large numbers of training vehicles. I know because I was one of them.

Oh yes, I live just off Bennion Road - the chicanes are a ‘treat’ for car learners and an especially big treat for LGV learners

Oh yes, the chicanes, I forgot about them. I used to go down Madeline Road when at Sammy’s. I used to think about going back that way but would always chicken out.

In the profession it is a well known fact that the large national driving schools make more money training instructors than learner drivers.
There use to be a statistic that only 17 out of every 100 trainee driving instructors qualify. This is the reason that many large driving schools offer very cheap driving lessons to use students as cannon fodder for trainee instructors. How do you spot the trainee driving instructor?, well they display a pink triangle license in the windscreen.

My brother trained with a well known national company and made very little money. On the advice of a friend he moved to another company who also operate a national two lettered break-down service. They were a little better, but after writing a couple of books for them he failed to make a reasonable living at it, re-trained as a lorryist and is currently gainfully employed and making a lot more than he ever did instructing.

That said, I know of a couple of retired police drivers who have trained as instructors - they do OK because they also have their police pension.

As I’ve said before, it IS quite easy (in normal times!) to gross well over £50k a year as a
self-employed ADI WITH a good name.

e.g. £23 a lesson x 9 a day = 207 x (lets take it easy & have a day off) 6 days = 1242 x (now lets take it real easy & have 3 weeks hols a year!) 49 = £60,850 gross.

Not saying this can be done right now, or as a newly qualified ADI, but it CAN be done.

To even try and do 9 hours teaching in one day would be absolutely crazy. You have to figure into this the time travelling between lessons, time for lunch break etc you would be working 13 hour days for 6 days a week!!! Any pupils you had would soon go elsewhere when the standard of lessons dropped because the instructor is asleep next to them.

I agree with way_1974, firstly you very rarely fill every hour of your day “thank christ.” Secondly as a grade 6 instructor with 15 years experience, I am only able to charge learner drivers £22 per hour. Some novice instructors around my area are charging £5 per hour.
If any one is thinking of getting rich quick by becoming an DSA-ADI forget it.

As an ex-instructor £23 per hour i wish and as for 9 hours work a day, you also got to try and get to your next lesson mmmm,
and the best one is a phone call just before you pick them up "oh sorry got no money this week see you same time next week " and you see them out at the weekend
Thats why i am so much happier as a lorry driver no stress now mmmmm lol…and regular pay!!!

At the moment things are stacked against anyone wishing to make a serious ‘go’ of it as an instructor, things like-

1. saturation of ADI’s
2. peoples willingness to undercut other prices
3. vehicles standing idle waiting for work
4. Rogue ADI’s bringing down standards

Hmmm the above points seem very familiar to another industry, don’t you think

Just for the record, I run a driving school with 3 instructors working for me and I am about to take on a fourth instructor to keep up with demand for lessons. I have my C + E licence and LOVE trucks.

With a lot of hard work and a bit of luck someone could make a successful ADI, I have been doing this job for over 8 years and still enjoy doing it.

If anyone would liike any questions answered, please feel free to do so, I will answer as honestly as I can.

Wayne

This seems to have gained more interest/discussion than I was expecting.

Perhaps I won’t move it.

Watching the Discovery Channel today and, of course, another advert for Red. I did note that one of their comments was that “over a million people learn to drive each year.”

I then tried to ‘do the sums’. ! Million divided by (average numbers of lessons per pupil) (20ish{hours}) based on a 40 hour week, over 50 weeks per year, and as to how many instructors that would require…

And the result is…

My head hurts.

The problem with RED (which is part of the instructor college, who used to advertise til they got such a bad reputation) and other national training providers, is that they would tell someone that has no communicative skills at all and drives like a boy racer that they would make an excellent ADI, just to get the £3-4000 course fee’s off them. They know the person would never get through the qualification process and so would expect to lose them through the course. If anyone is serious about doing this, I’d recommend finding a good local independant trainer who wouldn’t (zb) on his own doorstep.

Krankee:
This seems to have gained more interest/discussion than I was expecting.

Perhaps I won’t move it.

Watching the Discovery Channel today and, of course, another advert for Red. I did note that one of their comments was that “over a million people learn to drive each year.”

I then tried to ‘do the sums’. ! Million divided by (average numbers of lessons per pupil) (20ish{hours}) based on a 40 hour week, over 50 weeks per year, and as to how many instructors that would require…

And the result is…

My head hurts.

based on what you said

1.000.000
x
20

20.000.000
/
40

500000
/
50

so your answer is 10000 instructors for 1.000.000 new drivers per year

edit as spotted by Rog