Work with us: motorcycle instructor careers in London and Hertfordshire

What is the catch with free instructor training?

There is a condition, not a catch, and it is this. We pay for your professional training. In return you work with us at least four days a week for three years once you qualify.

What we pay for

Universal Motorcycle Training® pays for the training itself: supervision time, admin, materials, insurance, and use of our motorcycles and training areas. We value the programme at around £15,000 and you pay us nothing for it. What we cannot promise is a pass at your DVSA assessment, or that work follows. Both are written into the agreement in plain words.

One honest qualification, because it changes what ‘free’ means. Free covers our in-house programme, the part that turns a good rider into an instructor. Before it starts there is preparation you fund yourself, including advanced riding training with a recommended specialist advanced-riding school and the advanced test that goes with it. Our guide to becoming a motorcycle instructor sets out which parts those are.

DVSA charges nothing for the CBT and DAS instructor assessments themselves (GOV.UK, Motorcycle trainer fees, last updated 14 August 2026). What costs money is the training that gets you ready, and other schools charge for it: Camrider from £4600 per person, per qualification, Phoenix at ‘£1600 plus VAT’ or free against a two-year commitment (both checked 17 August 2026). We are not the only school that funds training and we do not pretend to be.

What we ask in return

Three years working with us once you qualify, at least four days a week, including most weekends. That is the deal that makes free training possible, and it is the whole of it. During training you are not paid and you cover your own travel and living costs. Once DVSA authorises you, you sign our standard services agreement and work as a self-employed contractor. It carries confidentiality, business-protection and early-exit terms, and we go through them with you before you sign.

Why we ask for the commitment

The reason is arithmetic. One of our DVSA-assessed instructors comes off paid work for every day spent supervising you, and we carry that cost from your first day to your last. It comes back through the work you go on to do here, and no other way.

Two ways in

Which route you take depends on one thing: whether you already hold a valid instructor certificate. Both routes end at the same place, teaching at our seven centres.

You are not qualified yet

Will we train you? Yes, if you are the right fit. DVSA sets the legal floor: 21 or over, with a full category A2 or A motorcycle licence held for at least three years (GOV.UK, checked 17 August 2026). An automatic-only or category A1 licence does not count (ATB manual, 2.1). Our own entry standard sits above that floor. We ask for a full, clean category A licence, because the person teaching a nervous beginner has to be the benchmark for what good riding looks like.

The route from there is the down-trained route, and it puts you in front of students sooner than most people expect. You train in house with our supervisors, and our director, a motorcycle instructor for almost two decades, leads the mentoring. We put you forward for your certificate only when you can run a full CBT course unassisted. Once DVSA issues it you teach CBT as a down-trained instructor, with a short stretch to develop your own practice and then your first DVSA standards check with a DVSA examiner. The DVSA assessment that takes you up to DVSA-assessed level is booked later, while you are already working and earning.

The rest we teach, from induction to DVSA requirements and our standards through to supervised delivery, feedback and coaching.

You cannot qualify on your own, and that is worth knowing before you talk to any school, ours included. Compulsory basic training can only be delivered by certified instructors working for an approved training body, the application to certify you has to come from that body, and only a DVSA-assessed CBT instructor may down-train you (DVSA ATB manual, Introduction, 2.39 and 11.9). The gate is in the regulations, not in our sales pitch.

Full detail, including what the training costs elsewhere: how to become a motorcycle instructor in London and Hertfordshire.

You are already a DVSA-authorised instructor

If you already hold a valid certificate of authority you do not need our training programme. What you need is an induction: proof of licence and authorisation, right to work, our site rules and our paperwork, then assignments. You would work with us as a self-employed contractor across seven centres in London and Hertfordshire.

The induction is free. There is no fee, no deposit and nothing deducted from your first invoices.

Certificates of authority belong to the training body that applied for them (DVSA ATB manual, 2.43), so moving to us means a fresh application, and under the rules that application has to come from us rather than from you. The role, the terms and how you invoice: motorcycle instructor jobs in London and Hertfordshire.

Where you would work

At one or more of our seven centres, six across London and one in Hertfordshire. Most instructors work mainly from the centre nearest home and travel to others when the diary needs it. Courses run seven days a week at most centres, so there is work most weeks of the year.

Universal Motorcycle Training® is the largest motorcycle training provider in London and Hertfordshire. Well over twenty DVSA- and MCIA-qualified motorcycle instructors work across the seven sites.

• Alperton, our London HQ, Wembley HA0 4LR
• Croydon, Croydon CR0 4WT
• Edgware, Edgware HA8 6AG
• Eltham, London SE3 8NB
• Wimbledon, New Malden KT3 4PH
• Dagenham, Dagenham RM9 6XW
• Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, Hoddesdon EN11 0EH

Each centre page carries the full street address and what runs there.

You would teach across our range, from compulsory basic training to direct access and full category A, depending on what you are certified for.

What we look for

DVSA sets the legal floor and we cannot move it: 21 or over, a full category A2 or A motorcycle licence held for at least three years, and a passed criminal record check (GOV.UK, Become a DVSA assessed CBT motorcycle instructor, last updated 14 August 2026). Our own list sits on top of that floor, and it is short.

• A full, clean category A motorcycle licence, held more than three years. That is our own entry standard rather than the DVSA minimum, and it is higher: DVSA accepts category A2, we ask for full category A. Your licence needs to be from Great Britain or Northern Ireland, or an EU or EEA licence registered with DVSA first (GOV.UK, checked 17 August 2026)
• The legal right to work in the UK
• Confident, fluent English, because you are teaching road safety to people who have to act on what you say
• Willing to work most Saturdays and Sundays
• Living within 30 miles of any of our training centres
• Happy to teach outdoors in most weather
• Teaching or coaching experience is welcome, not required. Another language is useful

What we do not offer

You are not paid during training, and you cover your own travel and living costs while you learn. Once working you are a self-employed contractor, so there is no PAYE, no holiday pay, no sick pay and no pension. You provide and insure your own motorcycle. We would rather you knew all of that before you apply.

A few more in the same spirit. Our motorcycles are for the students you teach and instructors are not insured to ride them on the road, so you work from your own machine, insured for instruction use, taxed, MOT’d where required and roadworthy. You bring your own radio kit too, meaning instructor transceivers, microphones, student receivers and earpieces, and your supervisor will help you set it up if you want a hand. Pay is commission on the courses you deliver, invoiced monthly in arrears, paid within 14 days of an undisputed invoice and earned on completed assignments, so a weather cancellation is paid when the session is rescheduled. And you cannot teach a live course until DVSA has authorised you: we prepare you and submit the application, but we cannot guarantee a pass.

Common questions about working with us

How to apply

Send the form below. Tell us whether you already hold a DVSA instructor certificate, which of the seven centres is nearest to you, and which days you can work. We contact the applicants we can take further. If you would rather talk to a person first, our phone, email and WhatsApp details are on the contact page.