How to Become a Tutor as a Student in 2024

Can University Students Become Tutors?

Do your classmates come to you for help? Do you assist your friends with revision? Or, have you helped your siblings or cousins with their homework so much that they’ve asked “where have YOU been all my life?!”. If you have special expertise and enjoy sharing it with others, tutoring may be an excellent way for you to earn money. If you show younger people that what they are learning is not just beneficial to them but also interesting, you will strengthen your own understanding of the subject.

In the UK, everyone from the age of 14 can become a tutor. Hence, yes, university students can become tutors too! 🤩 However, it’s not that easy… To be a great tutor, you need not only knowledge of the subject but also passion and interest that comes from your own love of it—otherwise, how can you inspire others?

Tutoring is not just a great way to make extra cash—it’s also a great way to gain experience, improve your CV, and develop skills that will help you in any job you apply for. Tutoring can give you soft skills such as problem-solving, communication, adaptability, etc., which are all things employers look for in new hires. It will also look great on your CV.

One of the best things about being a university student is that you have the time and space to pursue your interests and passions outside of your classes. You can teach new generations, shape minds and pass down your experience while also being rewarded. If this sounds like something you might want, keep on reading!

What Qualifications Do You Need to Be a Tutor?

In the UK, you don’t need to have any particular qualifications or experience in order to become an independent private tutor. However, it takes a lot to be a good one!

In order to be a good teacher, you need to know the subject matter that you plan on teaching. Ideally, it would be best if you were well-versed in this area either through having graduated or currently being a student in a related field. 📚 Ultimately, it’s up to your tutee’s parent or carer whether they think your qualifications are sufficient.

However, this only applies to independent tutors. If you want to be employed by an online platform or in a tutoring centre, it’s likely that you’ll have to undergo background and qualification checks.

Criteria Some Parents and Platforms Use to Evaluate Tutors

📌 Patience.

📌 Responsibility.

📌 Confidence.

📌 Good grades at A-levels and GCSEs.

📌 Experience tutoring.

📌 Reviews from previous tutees’, parents or other employers.

📌 Good communication skills.

📌 Using teaching methods backed up by science.

Depending on what kind of tutoring you want to do, and with which age group, there may be different knowledge and skills required. For instance, if you want to become an online tutor, it’s important that you know how to use various online platforms and software programs because many online tutors use them for communicating with students and organising lessons. 💻

Don’t forget that a tutor’s knowledge of the subject is only one aspect of a successful tutoring experience. Personalised attention and personal connection are what makes tutoring so much more effective for students than studying at school. Hence, you might need a lot of patience and good interpersonal skills. Students can be sensitive about their work, especially when it comes to their grades and performance in class. Therefore, tutors sometimes might need to provide emotional support as well.

Is Being a Tutor Worth it?

Being a tutor can be a rewarding job in many ways. You’re sharing your knowledge, gaining insight from others’ perspectives, and building relationships that could prove beneficial to both parties. You’re sharing your expertise and contributing to society by helping others. Who knows how that might come back around? You might be working with the next big thing! 🫢

Benefits of Being a Tutor

📌 Tutoring is a flexible and convenient job. You can tutor anywhere and anytime. Especially with new technologies and online tutors becoming more and more popular. Also, as mentioned above, if you’re interested in developing your CV and gaining work experience during university time, then being a tutor will give you these things while still allowing time for your studies.

📌 Tutoring is also in very high demand. There is a shortage of teachers in the UK and the covid-19 didn’t make things easier either. There is a huge learning loss and schools can’t provide personalised attention to students like a private tutor can.

📌 Tutoring is a great way to earn money and learn about something new. You get paid for teaching what you already know, plus it’s something that truly interests you which makes work more fun!

📌 Working as a tutor is a great way to get real-life experience in the field of education or teaching without having to go through all the hoops of finding an internship or completing graduate school. You’ll also have some great references for your resume when you’re done!

📌 When you’re applying for jobs after college, having tutoring experience on your resume will make you stand out from other applicants. 

Read more about why online tutoring jobs are the best way to make extra money as a student.

How Much Do Tutors Earn in the UK?

How much tutors earn in the UK depends on a number of factors, including subject, experience and location (if you are an in-person tutor). Tutors with more teaching experience can charge higher hourly rates.

The average tutor salary in the UK is £20.81. Considering how flexible tutoring is, this is one of the best ways to earn extra money during your university years.

How to Start Tutoring?

To start tutoring, you need to decide what kind of tutor you want to be first. You can either be an online tutor or an in-person tutor, and you can either work one-to-one with your students or in a group setting.

Once you’ve figured out which option is right for you, it’s time to decide whether you want to be an independent tutor or work with a tutoring company. If you go for the first choice, you’ll have more freedom. However, it will be harder to find students. One way to do that is by posting flyers around town or on social media. Another option is to contact local schools and ask if they have any openings for tutors.

You can offer parents a free session to help them make a decision. When meeting with students, make sure you outline your strengths and expectations clearly. You can read how should the first meeting of student and tutor go and pinpoint important things parents might be looking for.

How to Find Students for Online Tutoring?

If you want to be an independent online tutor, create a profile that can be posted on social media or websites where parents might search for tutors. These websites include Reddit, Facebook, Quora and etc. Include your relevant experience and skills in your portfolio so that it stands out amongst the crowd.

However, one of the most convenient and comfortable ways to become a tutor is to work through an online tutoring platform. You can tutor students from the comfort of your own home and let the platform do all of the hard work of finding customers.

One of the favourites of university students in the UK’ is Edumentors. If you are a high-achieving student studying at the top UK universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, Warwick or others, Edumentors.co.uk is the way to go. It’s not easy to become a tutor on Edumentors, but it is worth it!

Benefits of Working with Edumentors

📌 Parents trust Edumentors because of the rigorous interview process tutors go through before hiring. Hence, if you become a tutor on that platform, you can already start tutoring with confidence!

📌 Edumentors will help you determine what to charge, but ultimately it is your decision. As you build your experience, you can charge more. The platform gives a discount to parents who book 5 or more sessions at once, but this does not affect how much you are paid—you get full fees since it happens at Edumentors’ expense.

📌 Your pay is guaranteed. Parents will pay you 24 hours in advance, so your sessions are always covered.

📌 Your time will be respected. It’s hard to know for certain that you’ll be available all year, especially during the exam period. Edumentors gives you the flexibility and the ability to reschedule your sessions if necessary.

📌 You’ll have the Edumentors’ team’s continuous support. Whether you need advice or an answer to a question, they are available 24/7. For instance, they can help you set up your profile so that it’s appealing to parents. 

Check out the review from one of the best Edumentors’ tutors – Imogen:

✏️“Edumentors is the first platform I’ve tutored on which really considers and values the time and skills of its tutors. It gives me the freedom to set my own timings and prices and doesn’t seek to take advantage of its student tutors by taking an unreasonable percentage of the fee. The organisation is run with a personal and empathetic ethos which makes it a real joy to work for.”

How to Be a Good Tutor

As a tutor, you’ll be responsible for helping students reach their educational goals. The best tutors are able to create a safe environment and make sure everyone feels comfortable. They also know how to handle difficult situations and keep the student’s interests at heart. In tutoring, soft skills are as important as the knowledge you have in the subject. If you have a good understanding of Maths, you can become an online Maths tutor. However, being knowledgeable is not enough to stand out.

What makes up great tutors:

📌 Soft skills

You’ll want to be able to communicate with both the student and parent easily so that no one feels left out of the conversation. It’s important for students to feel like they can speak up if something is going wrong in their learning process and parents should trust that their kids are getting what they need from their time with you!

📌 Understanding of students’ needs

Tutors need to find resources (books, videos, puzzles) suitable for the age of a student. If you are planning to use specific material such as an educational website, make sure it’s age-appropriate. It’s essential that students don’t get bored by how easy the material is or vice versa, get overstimulated and overwhelmed by how difficult the sessions seem.

📌 Effective teaching methods

As an educator, you have to be able to assess students’ strengths and weaknesses and be able to adjust your tutoring lessons to them. Some students are visual (spatial) learners and study better with visual aids. Some are logical (mathematical) learners and learn better with puzzles. Tutors need to take those insights into consideration when searching for learning resources, planning a lesson and personalising teaching methods.

📌 Passion

No matter how much you know, if your passion for teaching is not evident to students, lessons will be less productive. Students can sense when a teacher lacks enthusiasm and might lose motivation.

Tutoring takes time and patience! Not every student will learn at the same rate, but it’s up to each individual teacher how much time they want to put into helping each child reach his or her full potential.

To Sum Up

Have you heard of the protégé effect? It’s found that teaching others (or even pretending to) can boost your confidence and refine and reinforce your knowledge! Now imagine earning extra cash from that! As we have seen, tutoring is a great way to do that while you study. You can also use it as a way to gain experience in teaching and so boost your career prospects in the future. All you have to do is to have a broad knowledge of the subject matter, a passion for teaching and a willingness to learn how to better yourself as a tutor after every session.

If you think that becoming a tutor is something you would enjoy, just do it! No one becomes an expert on the first try. It takes effort, passion and dedication to be successful.

Decide on what kind of tutor you’d want to be and find the way to execute it. Join communities, hand out fliers or register on the online tutoring platform to make this whole process easier.

Edumentors is looking for highly motivated students who have earned excellent grades in their GCSEs and A-levels—and have a passion for their subject area. Visit Edumentors.co.uk to become a tutor.