Salaries and wages

This page is where I talk about the money, or the lack of it, in English teaching in Madrid. My disclaimer: I know a lot about the market in Madrid, but not everything. Also, I'm just a bit cynical (who isn't?) and you're free to take whatever I say with a grain of salt. Please, double-check any information you may read or hear here. Sorry if any of it injures your sensibilities ;)

  

How much can you charge for private classes in Madrid, Spain.

About the Money in English Teaching in Madrid, Spain

A response to a Youtube.com email:

Hello, I watched some of your videos, which are great by the way, and since you're a very experienced teacher I thought I could ask you a question. Do teachers generally make a lot of money? I'm planning to be an English teacher myself and thought that the long summer vacation and holidays are great. But you said that teachers often need to have a second or third job - is it really that bad? Can a regular teacher spend the summer without having to work on another job? Also, what's the quality of life for teachers like? Do they have a nice amount of spare time per day and do you have time for hobbies or parties on the weekends? It'd be so great if you could answer my questions. Thanks, Kate.

An older article:

I saw your website and hope you don't mind if I write with a question: What is the going rate these days in Madrid for English teaching individuals and business? And schools? I saw 15 Euro as I browsed your page. I ask because I'm debating a return to Spain to teach English. I was a student there for 2 years in 1990-92, when I also taught English. I later taught English two years for the Peace Corps in Thailand and 1 semester at the Catholic University in Ecuador before returning to the US to do an MBA and work in business.

When I taught in 1992, I was making about $25/hour for teaching two small girls and I was pretty unskilled. I'm trying to gauge where the market overall has gone and where I might land in that market if I wanted to return for a year or so .... (Timothy)

Hello Timothy, Excuse the long-winded answer, but I really feel there is no one simple answer to your questions.

There is no set rate for English teaching in Madrid. Instead, there’s a range of rates that goes from around 6 to 50 euros per hour. Every company and individual is going to have the lowest and highest rates that they’ll pay and you’ll have your own range of rates that you’ll accept as well. (i.e. you’ll accept less for a student who comes to your apartment than for one you have to cross half of Madrid to get to.) Working for academies and agencies is usually not any different than working privately. It just means you have to factor in a few more numbers into your pros and cons tables.

Generally, you have no choice but to be a business man with each and every class you take. You have to take everything into consideration, including your own experience or lack of it, the chances you have of getting something better or not, the difficulties or complexities of the classes and students themselves, the distances that you have to cover to get to the classes, the number of total hours in the contract, the number of hours in key “rush-hour” time slots as compared to those that fall outside of those time slots, the number of hours that fall on “rush-hour” days like Monday through Thursday as compared to the number of hours that fall on non-key days like Fridays and Saturdays, the chances you have of getting more hours with the company or agency, the level of support that you’ll receive from the agency (especially regarding materials if you don’t have many) and the amount you have to pay to cover your commute (both “real” and “opportunity” costs).

I know a teacher in Madrid who charges 25 euros an hour for private students who come to his house and he gets plenty of them coming back-to-back. I’ve been charging less in Alcorcón in my own home, 18 (or 75% of that if they pay up front every month), but as my situation has changed somewhat because one of my companies has changed to evenings and I’ve taken on other responsibilities, I may eventually raise these rates to 20 or 25 per hour because I’ll only be able to fit in 4 privates between 20:00 and 22:00 from Monday to Thursday anyway; plus if I don’t get any to pay, it won’t be any problem because I have too much work anyway. (Last April and May I was overdosing on 37 1/2 hours of classes a week and working on the website, and I just can’t do it for very long.)

I should say that I also know a teacher who offered me one of his children’s groups like yours that paid 30 euros an hour. I think that if you were able to charge 25 euros an hour for a class back in 1992, you’ll find that things haven’t changed much. I think if you go to the students' homes, you can probably get away with charging 25 euros an hour or more for private classes. Like I said before, I’ve been charging less, but they’ve been coming to my house and I’ve been stacking classes back to back.

Of course, everything depends on your being able to find the classes whether through the agencies and academies, by networking, by marketing or whatever. Then, there are all those other factors like “do you look like a teacher?”, “do you act like a teacher?” and “can you sell yourself as a teacher?” Maybe you got lucky with that one class 13 years ago in 1992, but can you do it again and again when you need to. How good are you at networking? One percent of teachers are just so super charismatic that they ooze right into new student / clients without even breaking a sweat. What about you?

That’s never been my case and chances are that it’s not yours either in which case you’ll have to fight it out for classes along with the rest of us just-plain-old-average English teachers. And you’ll have to accept the average rates which run from about 12 to 18 for inexperienced or uncertified teachers to 18 to 24 for more experienced or qualified company class teachers. Private classes can make you more per hour, but you’ll find they tend to miss hours here and there, thereby lowering your overall average pay per hour.