How to become a motorcycle instructor in London and Hertfordshire

How do you become a motorcycle instructor in the UK?

There are three levels and you work up through them. A down-trained instructor is trained in house at an approved training body and can teach CBT only. A DVSA-assessed CBT motorcycle instructor has passed the DVSA assessment and can also train other instructors. A direct access instructor can teach learners on machines over 125cc and 11kW. Source: DVSA ATB manual, section 2.32.

Level 1: down-trained instructor

You are trained in house, by a DVSA-assessed instructor, at the approved training body (ATB) where you will work. No DVSA assessment at this level, and you deliver CBT only.

DVSA sets no minimum hours. The test is competence: an application ‘should only be submitted when the individual has reached a sufficient level of competence to deliver a full CBT course without assistance to the standards set by DVSA’ (ATB manual, 11.12). Until you reach that standard your training is role-play only. After it, you can assist on live courses with a DVSA-assessed instructor supervising throughout, and if that instructor leaves the group or the site for any reason, even momentarily, all training stops (11.10 to 11.11). While you are still a trainee, the supervising DVSA-assessed instructor signs off every DL196 certificate, and ‘under no circumstances should a trainee instructor sign off DL196 certificates’ (11.11). Once your own certificate is issued that changes: the DL196 is signed by whoever conducted the on-road element (5.10), and that is you.

Level 2: DVSA-assessed CBT motorcycle instructor

You have passed the DVSA assessment. You can deliver CBT and you can down-train other instructors, which is the part that makes you valuable to any school. Every ATB must have at least one DVSA-assessed CBT instructor appointed, and at least one for every ten down-trained instructors it uses, or its authority can be withdrawn (ATB manual, 2.35).

That hands you a test to use on any school, ours included. Ask how many DVSA-assessed CBT instructors it has, then ask who specifically will down-train you. Our answer: well over twenty DVSA- and MCIA-qualified motorcycle instructors.

Level 3: direct access scheme instructor

The top of the ladder: CBT, down-training, and machines over 125cc. There is a hard gate, because you must already have passed the DVSA-assessed CBT instructor assessment (ATB manual, 6.5). Any provisional licence holder training on a motorcycle over 125cc and 11kW can only be trained by a qualified direct access instructor (6.4), so a school running direct access courses needs these people to run them.

Can you qualify without joining a training school?

No. Compulsory basic training can only be delivered by certified instructors working for an approved training body, and the application to certify you must be submitted by that body on your behalf. Only a DVSA-assessed CBT instructor may down-train you. So the first job is not passing an assessment, it is finding a school that will take you on.

Three lines in the ATB manual close every other door. Applications ‘must be submitted by the ATB on behalf of the instructor’ (2.39), so there is no self-application route. ‘Under no circumstances should instructor training be provided by other down-trained instructors’ (11.9), so the pool of people legally able to bring you through is small. And a certificate is ‘only valid for use by the named instructor when conducting CBT or DAS courses for the ATB identified on the certificate’ (2.43), so it belongs to one school at a time.

There is no freelance motorcycle instructor in the way there is a freelance driving instructor. Hold on to that when you read any funded route in this trade, ours included. The school is not inventing a gate. The gate is in the regulations.

Who is eligible

What licence do you need to become a motorcycle instructor?

A full category A2 or A motorcycle licence held for at least three years, and you must be 21 or over (GOV.UK, checked 17 August 2026). The ATB manual puts the same rule in its own words, full motorcycle entitlement held three years or more, and is explicit that this ‘does not include automatic or category A1 licences’ (2.1). Your licence must be from Great Britain or Northern Ireland, or an EU or EEA licence registered first.

That is the legal minimum, and it is DVSA’s, not ours. Our own entry standard is higher: a full, clean category A licence, held more than three years. Category A2 satisfies the law and does not satisfy us, and it is fairer to say so here than at interview. The reason is simple enough. An instructor is the benchmark a trainee measures themselves against, so we start from riders who are already at the top of the licence ladder.

You also need to read a number plate at 26.5 metres in good daylight, glasses or contact lenses allowed, and to be considered a fit and proper person (2.1).

Do you need a criminal record check?

Yes. GOV.UK lists a passed criminal record check as a requirement on both the CBT instructor and the direct access instructor routes. A basic DBS check costs £21.50 in England and Wales and usually takes up to three days to process, then arrives by post. The certificate must have been issued within the last six months (ATB manual, 2.28).

You can pay for it yourself, or the training body may pay on your behalf (2.24). A fresh check is needed at each four-year renewal (2.26).

What stops an application

Points and disqualifications, mostly. No disqualification in the last four years, and a drink or drug driving conviction in the same window is treated the same way. The CBT Registrar is also likely to consider refusing an application where a single offence or fixed penalty carried six or more points, or where six or more points have built up over four years (2.19 to 2.20). Eyesight is the other one, and it is checked again on the day of your assessment before anything else happens.

We add two criteria of our own, which are ours rather than DVSA’s: the full, clean category A licence described above, and living within 30 miles of any of our training centres. The rest of what we ask sits on our work with us page.

The DVSA assessments

There are two separate assessments, one for CBT instruction and a shorter one for direct access, and DVSA charges nothing for either. Both run at a DVSA assessment centre. At the CBT assessment you are marked on two jobs, instruction and supervision, and you need to be competent at both to pass.

How long is the CBT motorcycle instructor assessment?

Two days, on the weight of DVSA’s own documents. The ATB manual says so at 2.36 and again at 6.5, and DVSA’s June 2024 preparation guide refers to ‘the two days’ throughout. GOV.UK’s overview page still says one day, and we read that as out of date rather than as a second option, so plan for two and read the note below before you book anything. The direct access assessment is half a day, on which GOV.UK and the ATB manual (6.5) agree.

What happens is not in dispute. Identity check, then the eyesight test, and failing that ends the day there. Usually three candidates are assessed together, taking turns as instructor and supervisor while the assessor plays the trainee rider. You teach a sample of lessons drawn from the CBT elements, allocated on the day, plus about an hour on the road. Each lesson scores 1 to 4, and DVSA’s own worked example shows that a single two on the road ride can fail an otherwise strong candidate ‘due to the high level of associated risk’ (DVSA CBT instructor assessment guidance, June 2024). The supervision half is the one people underestimate.

A note on conflicting sources, checked 17 August 2026

We are showing our working here, because almost every page on this subject states a figure confidently and several of them are out of step with one DVSA source or another.

• GOV.UK, Become a DVSA assessed CBT motorcycle instructor, last updated 14 August 2026: ‘You’ll have to take a 1-day assessment at a DVSA training and development centre.’
• ATB manual, 2.36: a DVSA-assessed CBT instructor ‘will have passed the two-day instructor assessment held at a DVSA training establishment’.
• ATB manual, 6.5: ‘Instructors must already have successfully completed the two-day CBT instructor assessment.’
• DVSA CBT instructor assessment guidance, June 2024: ‘Day one of your assessment will begin in the classroom which will be your base for the two days.’

So two DVSA documents say two days, between them three times, and they are the detailed operational ones. The GOV.UK overview says one day and carries the most recent update date of the four. We follow the operational documents, which is why this page says two days, and we have written to [email protected] for written confirmation. If DVSA replies that the assessment is one day, GOV.UK wins and we change the page and the date above the same week. Anywhere the detail does not matter, we simply say ‘the DVSA assessment’.

Where you take it, and what that means from London or Hertfordshire

DVSA’s June 2024 preparation guides put both assessments at the DVSA assessment centres in Chadderton or Gillingham. From anywhere in London or Hertfordshire, Gillingham in Kent is the realistic option. Chadderton is in Greater Manchester, which means travel and, if the assessment runs over two days, a night away. DVSA’s own advice is worth repeating: if you are booking accommodation, a flexible late cancellation policy helps, because assessments can be postponed at short notice for weather or sickness.

You may still see Cardington named on commercial pages, and DVSA’s own register tables still label the qualification ‘CBT1 Cardington Assessed’. Cardington is not one of the current assessment centres. Treat it as a legacy name.

What bike you need

Your own, and it must be legal. GOV.UK requires a fully taxed, insured and roadworthy motorcycle with a power output of at least 20kW. Turn up without your licence, your certificate where you hold one, or a compliant machine, and the assessment is cancelled. DVSA’s June 2024 guide adds two practical items: in-ear earphones with an inline microphone and a 3.5mm jack for the road session, and cone layouts you can set out yourself, because there are no bespoke road markings at either centre.

What happens if you fail

Three outcomes at the CBT assessment. Pass both parts and you apply for the certificate. Pass instruction but fail supervision and you keep your down-trained certificate, carry on working, and go again. Fail the instructional part and supervision is not marked at all, and the local CBT examiner receives a copy of the report, which may trigger a standards check at the school where you work.

Fail twice within a 12-month period and you wait until a year after the second attempt. The direct access rules are gentler: reapply immediately after one failure, show evidence of further training after two, wait 12 months after three.

When you take the DVSA assessment

Later than most people assume, and on our route that is deliberate. You are trained in house, you go forward for your certificate when you can run a full CBT course unassisted, and you teach for real as a down-trained instructor once DVSA issues it. Your first DVSA standards check follows, with a DVSA examiner, in a normal lesson at your own training body. The DVSA assessment that takes you up to DVSA-assessed level is booked after that, while you are already working, so you sit it with live delivery behind you rather than role-play.

There is no rule on GOV.UK or in the ATB manual, checked 17 August 2026, that sets a deadline for making that step. A down-trained instructor can hold the certificate and keep teaching CBT, and the manual handles the balance with the one-in-ten rule instead (2.35). Two dates do matter and they are separate from all of this: your certificate runs for four years from issue (2.45), and renewal needs a fresh basic DBS check (2.26).

How much does it cost to become a motorcycle instructor?

The DVSA assessments are free. GOV.UK states there is no charge to take the compulsory basic training and direct access scheme instructor assessments (Motorcycle trainer fees, last updated 14 August 2026). What costs money is the training that gets you ready, plus a basic DBS check at £21.50 and travel. Published commercial prices run from £499 for one part of a three-part course to £4,600 or more for a full qualification.

What DVSA charges

Nothing, for either instructor assessment. That surprises most people, and it matters, because it tells you that every pound you spend goes to a commercial provider, to travel, or to time off the road earning nothing. Other DVSA fees exist further along the road, for the voluntary special test and for Enhanced Rider Scheme trainer registration, but neither stands between you and your first certificate (Motorcycle trainer fees, last updated 14 August 2026).

What commercial training costs

DVSA maintains a list of instructor training providers and names four: Edinburgh Motorcycle Training, Fast-Trak Essential Driver Training, Pass Bike and Phoenix Motorcycle Training (GOV.UK, last updated 22 August 2025). It endorses none of them, and it is clear their courses ‘are not a replacement for the official DVSA qualifications’.

Two of the four providers on DVSA’s list publish no instructor training price at all. That opacity is worth knowing about before you start ringing round.

The costs nobody lists

• Basic DBS check, £21.50 (GOV.UK, checked 17 August 2026).
• Travel to Gillingham or Chadderton, plus a night’s accommodation if you are sent north.
• Your own motorcycle of at least 20kW, taxed, insured and MOT’d where required, and the fuel to get it there.
• In-ear earphones with an inline microphone and a 3.5mm jack.
• The DVSA publications, priced at DVSA’s own shop and checked August 2026: The Official DVSA Guide to Learning to Ride at £14.99, The Official DVSA Guide to Riding, the essential skills at £19.99, The Official Highway Code at £4.99 and Know Your Traffic Signs at £5.99 (safedrivingforlife.info, the DVSA shop run with TSO; the Know Your Traffic Signs price is confirmed again on the TSO shop’s own product page for the sixth edition). Buying all four comes to £45.96.
• The one people forget: the weeks you spend training instead of earning.

Paying for it yourself, or having it funded

Two routes exist and they cost differently. Pay a commercial provider, keep your independence, and expect a bill somewhere between £599 plus VAT for an online package with the on-site training arranged elsewhere and £4,600 or more for a full qualification. Or train with a school that funds it and work with them afterwards. We fund ours, and what we ask in return is at least four days a week for three years.

We are not the only school that funds training, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Phoenix publishes a free route against a two-year commitment, and Camrider trains new instructors free where they go on to work for Camrider. Ours stands on what it actually contains: supervised training measured in full days rather than hours, seven centres across London and Hertfordshire so you learn at the site nearest you, courses running seven days a week at most of them, and paid work as a down-trained instructor from the point your certificate is issued.

How our funded route works, and what we ask in return

We pay for your professional training and there is no fee for you to pay. In return you work with us at least four days a week for three years once you qualify. That is the whole trade, and both halves go in the same sentence every time, because it comes up at the first interview anyway.

Here is what sits behind it. We value the programme at around £15,000, covering supervision time, admin, materials, insurance, bike and training area use. The largest part of that is not paperwork. It is the DVSA-assessed instructors who come off revenue-earning work to supervise you, week after week, for as long as it takes. We carry that up front, and we recover it only through the work you go on to do with us.

We train people who want a career with us. The funding rests on that, which is why the commitment is at least four days a week for three years once you qualify, and why we say so at the first conversation rather than the last. If you would rather keep your independence, pay a commercial provider, and we would still rather you knew that now than found out three months in.

The programme, stage by stage

Two halves, and the difference between them is who pays. The first half is preparation you do before you join, largely outside the company and at your own cost. The second half is our programme, and it is the part that is free.

Before you join, and at your own cost

• The theory. Read and re-read the foundation of the UK systemic approach to riding, from a published handbook anyone can buy.
• Advanced riding training. Several days of advanced-riding training, taken in blocks with practice time in between. We do not run advanced riding courses in house at present, apart from the DVSA Enhanced Rider Scheme, so we point you at a recommended specialist advanced-riding school and you book and pay that school directly.
• The advanced test, to gold standard. Taken with one of the recognised advanced-riding bodies, booked and paid for by you. Missing gold at the first attempt is not a problem; it means more practice and another go.
• Structured reading. The DVSA syllabus and guidance, the national standards for rider training and for riding, and the standards check criteria and examiner guidance, plus two published DVSA books you buy.

Inside the programme, which is the part we fund

• Observation. Full days watching live CBT courses, deliberately spread across different instructors, because every lesson is different once a real learner is standing in front of it.
• Mock delivery. Full days of mock CBT delivery with a qualified DVSA supervisor, before you are anywhere near a paying customer.
• Supervised live delivery. Full days teaching live students with a supervisor present throughout, each closed by a long debriefing session the same evening. The debrief is the point of it.
• The decision. A lead supervisor oversees your progression and decides whether to apply to DVSA on your behalf. Our director, a motorcycle instructor for almost two decades, leads the mentoring. Under the rules the application has to come from us rather than from you (ATB manual, 2.39), and it is a decision, not a formality.
• Certificate, then live work. Once DVSA issues your certificate you teach CBT as a down-trained instructor, with a short stretch to develop your own practice, then your first DVSA standards check with a DVSA examiner. The DVSA assessment comes later, as set out above.

Counted honestly, the in-house half alone runs to well over sixty full days of observed, mock and supervised training before an application is even submitted. We publish days rather than weeks or months, because progression is individual and the agreement fixes no programme length.

What the training consists of, in the words of the agreement you would sign: induction to DVSA requirements and our standards, access to our training materials and guidance, opportunities for observation and supervised practice, feedback, coaching and progression planning, and an introduction to how we run bookings, paperwork and client care. Content and sequencing change with DVSA requirements and with how you are getting on. We do not promise a named personal mentor or a fixed number of supervised hours, because progression is individual and any figure would be invented.

The limits, in the same place as the offer:

• You are not paid during training, and you cover your own travel and living costs while you learn. The preparation stages above are your cost too, including the advanced-riding training and the advanced test.
• We cannot guarantee you a certificate. Putting you forward is the lead supervisor’s decision, DVSA issues the certificate, and DVSA marks the standards check and the assessment.
• Work afterwards is not guaranteed either, although the reason we fund training is that we need instructors.
• Once qualified you work with us as a self-employed contractor, responsible for your own income tax and National Insurance, with no holiday pay, sick pay or pension.
• You provide and insure your own motorcycle for the work. The bikes at our centres are for the students you teach.
• Payment is earned on completed assignments, so a session cancelled for weather is paid when the rescheduled session runs.
• The agreement includes terms covering early exit, and we go through them with you in full before you sign.

Every one of those filters out somebody who would have left in month three, which is why they sit beside the offer rather than below it. If none of them put you off, our work with us page is where you start.

How long does it take to qualify?

DVSA sets no minimum training hours. The standard is competence, defined as being able to deliver a full CBT course without assistance (ATB manual, 11.12). The paperwork is more predictable: a basic DBS check takes about three days plus post, and DVSA aims to process a certificate application within ten working days. Around those fixed steps, expect many months rather than weeks, and we do not put a single figure on it because progression is individual.

Two other fixed points are worth diarising. Pre-assessment paperwork is due at least 21 days before your date, and once you pass you keep your existing certificate until the new one arrives, because you must have a valid certificate in your possession to instruct.

For scale, other providers publish this about their own programmes, quoted rather than endorsed: Pass Bike, 21 days and 170 hours across three parts; Phoenix, two blocks of five days with the caveat that further tuition may be needed; Motorcycle Instructor Training Centre, ‘an average of 500 hours of education’ (all checked 17 August 2026). That spread is why any single ‘qualify in X weeks’ figure deserves a hard look. We do not publish one.

What the job is actually like

You teach beginners, outdoors, in traffic, for a living. A CBT day runs from a licence and eyesight check through classroom work, off-road exercises and at least two hours on the road, with a maximum of four trainees per instructor on site and two on the road (ATB manual, 4.11 and 4.12). The riding is not yours. Most of the day you are watching somebody else’s.

What does a motorcycle instructor do all day?

Paperwork and eyesight first, then the bike and its controls, then off-road practice, then the on-road element with radios. You spend the day identifying faults, working out what is causing them, and choosing a remedy a nervous adult can act on inside five minutes. Those three things are exactly what DVSA marks you on at the assessment, because they are the job. Beyond CBT there is full licence training, refresher work, and corporate and fleet training, where we train riders for some of London’s largest delivery and public-sector fleets.

Why the trade is short of instructors

The register has shrunk while the work has not. Instructor certificates held in Great Britain fell from 3,219 at the end of June 2011 to 1,849 at the end of March 2026, a fall of 43 per cent. Over the same period the number of DL196 certificates issued to approved training bodies barely moved, 196,450 in 2011/12 against 193,575 in 2025/26 (DVSA, Driving instructor and motorcycle instructor register data, tables INS0201 and INS0203, last updated 25 June 2026, data to March 2026). Divide one by the other and each certificate on the register now covers about 105 DL196 certificates a year, against about 61 in 2011/12. That is our own arithmetic and a crude directional measure rather than a workload figure, because DL196s are issued to training bodies in books and one instructor can hold more than one type of certificate.

The trade press says the same thing in plainer words. The owner of Phoenix Motorcycle Training told Visordown on 10 September 2025: ‘At the moment, we have more learners wanting to sign up for courses than we can take on because we don’t have enough instructors to train them.’ Schools are not funding training out of generosity. There is work going unserved.

Will it kill my riding?

It changes it. Instructors on rider forums make the same point, that after a week of teaching the last thing they want at the weekend is another ride (UKGSer thread, 16 April 2017). Some ride less. Others find their own riding gets sharper, because they spend the week watching faults and correcting them. Go in expecting the change rather than hoping it will not come. That thread is nine years old and we cite it for the objection, not for pay or conditions.

Working outside, all year

Yes, in most conditions. CBT runs off-road and on-road through the winter, and the on-road element goes ahead in rain. Sessions are cancelled for genuinely unsafe conditions, not for discomfort. Good kit stops being a hobby purchase and becomes a work expense.

Can you do it part-time?

Yes, and it is a normal way in while another job pays the bills. Two things to plan around. Training part-time takes longer in real weeks than training in blocks, because competence is judged on what you can do rather than on hours logged. And once you qualify we ask for at least four days a week, over three years, with most Saturdays and Sundays among them, because that is when learners book.

Becoming a motorcycle instructor in London

We run six centres in London and train instructors at all of them, so you learn at the site nearest you rather than commuting across the city to one location. Most of them run CBT seven days a week, which is what gives a trainee instructor enough live courses to watch and, once competent, to assist on.

• Alperton, our west London headquarters, 82 Sunleigh Road, Wembley, HA0 4LR
• Croydon, 2 Ampere Way, CR0 4WT
• Edgware, The Hive London, Camrose Avenue, HA8 6AG
• Eltham, Charlton Park Rugby Club, 60A Broad Walk, SE3 8NB
• Wimbledon, Goals Wimbledon car park, Beverley Way, New Malden, KT3 4PH
• Dagenham, Goals Dagenham, Ripple Road, RM9 6XW

South-east London is the busiest corner of this market for recruitment. Two schools were advertising instructor roles in Greenwich and Lewisham on 17 August 2026, and a third advert posted in July 2026 covered sites including Eltham. Worth knowing if you live nearby.

Becoming a motorcycle instructor in Hertfordshire

Our Hertfordshire centre is at Rye Road, Hoddesdon, EN11 0EH, part of the same seven-centre operation as our six London sites. Hertfordshire is a thin market for instructor adverts. No Hertfordshire advert quoting a rate was found on Indeed, Bikejobs, Reed, Totaljobs or Find a Job on 17 August 2026, so there is very little published locally to compare, and the roles that exist are filled through the schools’ own sites rather than the boards.

Two schools recruiting in the county, at Welwyn Garden City and Bricket Wood, publish no Hertfordshire training route in. If you are in Hoddesdon, Harlow, Cheshunt, Broxbourne or Ware, the nearest funded training place is on your doorstep rather than in central London.

Common questions

Where to go next

If you are not qualified yet and this route makes sense to you, our work with us page sets out what we look for and how to apply. If you already hold a valid DVSA certificate, you need none of the above, and our motorcycle instructor vacancies page covers the induction route instead. To see what you would be teaching, read our compulsory basic training page, or contact us and ask.