Tutoring after teaching: a practical guide for UK teachers

Plenty of UK teachers tutor alongside the day job, go part-time and top up with it, or leave the classroom and take their subject knowledge with them. The work itself is the best bit of teaching — one motivated student, no marking pile, no duty rota. Here's a practical look at how to start.

Why qualified teachers have the edge

Tutoring is an unregulated market: anyone can advertise. That's exactly why being a qualified teacher matters so much to parents — you know the curriculum, the exam boards and the mark schemes, and you can show a track record in real classrooms. Parents pay more, and stay longer, for that. Some platforms blur the line by listing students and graduates alongside teachers; we deliberately don't. Teachers Delivered only lists qualified, experienced teachers, so you're never competing on price with an undergraduate.

What you'll need

• A teaching qualification — QTS, PGCE, BEd, CELTA or equivalent.
• Classroom experience — parents want someone who has actually taught.
• An Enhanced DBS certificate — most serving teachers already have one; see our guide to DBS checks for tutors.
• References — we ask for two, ideally someone who has seen you teach.

If you have those, you're most of the way there. The rest is deciding what to charge (see how the money works) and when you're available.

Evenings, weekends, or a full diary

Tutoring demand follows the school year: it builds through the autumn term, peaks from January to the summer exams, and spikes again around results days. Most tutoring happens after school and early evening, which is what makes it workable alongside a teaching job — and why September is the best moment to have your profile ready.

The admin is the hard part — unless it isn't

Going it alone means finding families, chasing payments, rescheduling by text, and running your own video calls. A platform's job is to remove that: on Teachers Delivered parents find you by subject, level and location; booking and payment happen up front through Stripe; lessons run in built-in video with screen sharing for slides; and your earnings are tracked in one dashboard. You set your own hourly rate (there's a £30 platform minimum — we don't allow a race to the bottom) and we take a transparent 20% fee on each lesson, with no joining fee and no exclusivity.

Getting started

Create your tutor profile — the form takes a few minutes, and vetting (qualification, DBS, references) starts as soon as you upload your documents. You'll be visible to parents the moment you're approved.