Post: #1

Yo,


So I've moved from Australia to UK and now live in St Albans, a wealthy middle class area with a stack of tennis courts and clubs (including indoor).


I didn't know anyone to play tennis with so I put up an ad on some UK tennis site on the web and a guy hit me up to play.


I beat him 6-0, 6-0 fairly comfortably having not played for 1.5 years and he told me he thinks I would beat his tennis coach - dude gets weekly lessons.


I asked what his coach charges. 20GBP per hour + court hire fee.


If I coached 5 hours a week after work and on weekends at this dude's coaching rate that would be an extra 5.2kGBP per year.


If it was 10 hours that would be over 10kGBP per year as a side hustle doing something that is relatively easy.


The coach is Lvl 3 accreditation in UK.


Is anyone here a coach? How much money do you make? How long did it take you to get your accreditation? Is it worth it? Do people in the UK generally suck at tennis?

Post: #2

Hey man
A brother of a friend of mine is a tennis coach, in the South of England, not too far from Brighton, if memory serves me correctly.
I can find out from my friend the answers to your questions if you like?
PM if you want me to try and get some info.

Post: #3

A buddy of mine is a tennis coach full time in the US. He racks in a few hundred every week doing private lessons, and he coaches at the local high school each season. He's also had a contract coaching at a high-end resort.

Not a bad gig at all really. His clientele ranges from little kids to retirees. He got into tennis in high school and played it in community college and took it from there. He's built up a pretty big network in his local area, though I'm sure his parents helped him get most of his clients when he first started.

He sets his own hours and I'm sure he does well when it comes time to file his taxes since he's mainly just taking his payment in cash.

He's got a game technique down where he hands out his business cards to the bored house wives, then waits for them to hit him up for a "lesson" haha

Post: #4

I was thinking about this before, although my level is around 4.0 NTRP. I'm not sure what level you need to teach, and I pretty much learnt to play by myself so I am not sure how I would teach some new playeers swing techniques etc.

Post: #5

I am not a tennis coach but I used to take my niece to a tennis club.

20 pounds an hour sounds too low. The cheapest I have seen was 30 pounds an hour (take note that I live in London) and the so called coaches charging 20 pounds an hour, I wouldn't hire them to coach anybody.

UK tennis players on average are probably better than US players. Didn't you see the game during the weekend UK vs US?

It sounds like a decent hustle, if you are really good you probably don't even need any accreditation, just go ahead and post an ad on gumtree.

Post: #6

(03-10-2015 02:54 AM)pitt Wrote:  It sounds like a decent hustle, if you are really good you probably don't even need any accreditation, just go ahead and post an ad on gumtree.

There is most likely going to be an insurance problem if you don't have the quals.

It's getting harder and harder for sports coaches in any discipline to get public liability insurance without jumping through accredited hoops these days.

Sports coach insurance is usually very, very cheap and I think you'd be crazy to coach without it.

Post: #7

I'm glad you mentioned indoor courts with the weather we have in the UK, ha ha.

I know someone who is a tennis coach and he seems to make a reasonable living from that, a mixture of private lessons and teaching kids to play. He very wisely joined a local tennis club and is now their main/ preferred instructor. But whether he works can be at the mercy of the weather. And his busiest days are at the weekends.

Post: #8

I'm going to try the Gumtree route , will put ads up around town too where they will get eyes on them. Accreditation sounds like a racket that only pays off if you want to go full time and have time to burn at their instructor lessons. They charging over £625 to get Lvl3 certification and I'd waste most of my annual leave too when I could be in Eastern Europe instead, no thanks.

I only want a few hours per week. I have 14 years experience at school, uni and club level, will offer 1 hr free try before you buy.