 Poster: A snowHead
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Hi everyone
Does anyone have a handle on what the going rate are for hourly pay for instructors in uk, dry slope, snow dome whatever etc?
Pm me if you would rather.
Cheers
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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At Trowse Mountain (Norwich dry slope) the hourly pay rate is £0 - we’re all volunteers! 
Last edited by Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person on Mon 14-01-19 23:10; edited 1 time in total
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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@Amunah, that’s cool nice work
I do a bit of volunteering myself outside of the ski world
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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BASI 1 or SSE 1 at my local dry slope is around £9
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@Chamcham, are there higher rates for levels 2,3 etc?
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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I work at Snozone Milton Keynes and most of us get a a little bit above £9 an hour with the possibility of extras for this and that.
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hey glasscalcite what sort of extras do you get? like discounts for family members etc? does everyone regardless of level of qual get the same hourly rate?
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I think if you budget on minimum wage for instructors working for the slope ski school you'll not be too far off. I don't know of any that offer significantly more for higher qualified instructors. Sometimes there will be small bonuses for things like being requested as the instructor for a private lesson. Most slopes/clubs will offer some benefits on top, like free slope time, instructor training sessions. If you're working as an independent instructor then you can charge as much as you like, of course, but then you have costs to cover too. I see it as volunteering: any pay I get just about covers my travel costs if I'm lucky.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| kieranm wrote: |
| I think if you budget on minimum wage for instructors working for the slope ski school you'll not be too far off. I don't know of any that offer significantly more for higher qualified instructors. Sometimes there will be small bonuses for things like being requested as the instructor for a private lesson. |
Sounds a bit like lap dancing.
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| davidof wrote: |
Sounds a bit like lap dancing. |
In which case surely they should be paid double as ski instructors have to cope with 2 poles 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| Quote: |
Sounds a bit like lap dancing.
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It does doesn't it. Fortunately for everyone involved there is no further similarity. I'm trying to work out now how I could have worded it to avoid giving you that unfortunate mental image.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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there would seem to be a large variation in the quals that instructors have at the various indoor slopes but the pay seems to be similar everywhere
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@ajc2260626, yes, very little compared to the cost of the lesson. Considering the responsibility the instructor has for ensuring the success and safety of a lesson and that the instructor has paid for his/her qualification, CRB and first aid certs both initially and with mandatory reassements etc it seems very wrong to me. 
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You know it makes sense.
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Yep it is, I know for a fact though that some snowdomes have instructors working with a max of two days instructor training and none of true other bits.... if only the public knew
There’s a massive inconsistency of the level of instuction depending on what instructor you get, it’s pot luck really and in some cases possibly illegal lol
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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A counter argument is that there are very many excellent instructors working at UK slopes with L1 qualifications who deliver really good sessions, and in many cases better than a more qualified instructor (like me!). I.e. there is I think no guarantee that a more qualified instructor will deliver a better lesson. If that's the case then why should they get paid more? The better instructors (regardless of their qualifications) will get more requests, and more work. The key skills that I would be looking for in an instructor are empathy and patience, and I've yet to see any of the instructor qualifications include an empathy module for example. Experience also counts for a lot - a L1 qualified instructor with 10 years under their belt would probably be able to teach a freshly but more highly qualified instructor a thing or two.
The more qualified instructors will be able to teach some sessions that need the higher qualifications (e.g. race coaching, freestyle coaching, instructor training), and I think it's an interest in these sorts of specialisms that drives many instructors to take further qualifications.
From a club's perspective having different rates of pay for different instructors doing the same work would I think be pretty divisive. I would be all in favour of paying the instructors more, but while there is a ready supply of people like me who are happy to do it at a loss because they love doing it that isn't likely to happen.
To put it another way, I don't think many clubs or slopes in the UK are making massive profits. Increasing instructor pay would likely just mean passing those costs onto the skiers, and skiing is already expensive enough to be inaccessible to many.
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Poster: A snowHead
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yep undoubtedly thats sometimes the case however there are a couple of specifics that i have seen...... so people with no experience and have done a minimum of 2 days snowsports england instructor course, they clearly didn't have the knowledge or the skills to run the lesson, parts of it were basically dangerous.... secondly there are a lot of old school instructors who haven't being on a cpd and are teaching stuff how it was taught 10 years ago etc, its not wrong but its not great.... some of the snow domes are also letting them teach without up to date certs..... i even know of one guy who took a lesson with NO quals what so ever...... clearly there are shades of grey here and after all its the ski industry...... but you know the old saying..... " you pay peanuts then you get.....
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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"you pay peanuts then you get....."
....people who aren't doing it for the money mostly.
I'm in no way endorsing slopes employing people who don't have the minimum qualifications. That is a different question to the one I was trying to answer which is "why don't more highly qualified instructors get paid more?" If you know of people teaching without a licence and so no insurance then I'd raise that with the club as it isn't safe for either the people in the lesson or the instructor.
You probably know this, but others reading this might not: the initial 2 day SSE instructor course doesn't give you a licence to teach. It is followed by a lengthy period of training by the club, combined with shadowing other instructors (which might include being involved in the lesson but always under the qualified instructors supervision) to gain experience, before taking the assessment and all the other bits like first aid. The total training time can way exceed a more intensive course like BASI L1.
If you know of people teaching based solely on the basis of the 2 day course without all the rest then again they have no licence, no insurance, and that should be addressed. Unfortunately though without more details we can't do anything by talking about it here.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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@kieranm, no i didn't know this so actually its probably worse than i thought, as there are people teaching with literally 2 days course experience under their belts as i understand it (and one example of someone before they even attended the course)... i am basi schooled so don't really know about the other routes that well
you are right though i don't do it for the money either (some of the younger guys do though) but i was interested in the nuts and bolts of the business, but when you see what they charge and the product that is getting put out, if the punters knew what was going on then they wouldn't be best impressed, also i have to spend a lot of time unpicking shoddy teaching from previous lessons lol
however, i think that the reason this is happening though is directly linked to how much the instructors get paid, if you do this for a living its not enough, and hence a lot have left which means there is a permanent shortage of available instructors, which puts them in a tricky spot hence you get cutting corners.
to be honest its not my problem and i haven't the time or to be honest the inclination to put my head above the parapet formally......
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I think it's a shame if slopes are cutting corners in the way you suggest. I certainly wouldn't want to work in that environment, and all the slopes and clubs I've worked for have taken licences, CPD, and developing instructors' skills very seriously. I think with good reason too: the people paying for the lessons can tell if they're not getting a good experience.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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I think @Amunah's comment at the top is worth re-reading. Norwich has a great club, with committed instructors. I've not worked there, but I have trained, been on courses, and been assessed with some of them a few times and they seem to do a great job. But they're volunteers. Other places are therefore paying their instructors more, but from your description aren't delivering the same quality. I think this is my point: it's much more about the ethos of the club and the support they give than about how much the instructors get paid.
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i agree, these aren't clubs as such, they are venues that are there to make a profit as they are a business which is fair enough, i think that clubs are a different proposition as they are based on good will etc like a local rugby club.
i dont agree about the public knowing the difference.... some do, but a lot dont.....
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@ajc2260626,
I reckon the 'public' almost have no idea whatsoever what they're buying at an early stage and this is where most of the training money comes from.
Some level one's do give very good lessons trying very hard to get their students well grounded in mastering the fundamentals. Some work very hard in difficult congested slopes. Some are very good communicators with bags of empathy and sadly some are none of these.
I'm taking a 10 y/o to beginner tennis lessons at a very large established well known venue. The young instructors there seem completely indifferent to their students not learning tennis!
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FAQ
