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What?! £24?!

When I was learning to drive 14 years ago, driving lessons were about £13, so they have nearly doubled in price during the last 14 years! That can’t be right.

But when I start thinking about it, most things have doubled in price during the last 14 years. I still struggle to buy a mars bar for 70 pence as, in my mind they should be about 35 pence. Maybe I’m just getting old.

There are however countless adverts around stating ‘earn £30,000 as a driving instructor, which seems quite steep at first, but is it such a great wage for all of the work involved? Lets take a look. To earn that amount of money a driving instructor has got to first pay for all his expenses which include fuel – which is pretty much at an all time high in the United Kingdom, insurance, which is pretty much at an all time high in the United Kingdom, the purchase or hire of a vehicle, road tax, servicing, wear and tear on tires etc. advertising costs and holiday income and pension. I would estimate that those costs come to about £10-15,000 per year.

If the instructor has got to earn £30,000 + £15,000 then that will be a total of about £45,000. If you divide that by £24 per hour that means they have got to work 1,875 hours a year. That works out at over 39 hours teaching a week (assuming they are working 47 weeks a year).

For an instructor to be working, teaching pupils for 39 hours a week they they would probably be in the car teaching and traveling for 50 hours in the week. This suddenly doesn’t seem like a very easy £30,000 – especially when you consider that that is only if they can get the hours of teaching.

Driving lessons are probably quite reasonable then.