Motorcycle instructor jobs in London and Hertfordshire

The role

You teach compulsory basic training (CBT), and direct access and full licence training if you are certified for it, at one or more of our seven centres. We allocate assignments and you take the ones that suit your days. Most instructors work mainly from the centre nearest home and travel to another site when the diary needs it.

What you would be doing

A CBT day runs the way DVSA sets it out. Licence and eyesight check, the classroom and machine familiarisation elements, on-site riding, then the road ride with radio contact throughout. Ratios are fixed and we do not stretch them: a maximum of four trainees per instructor on site and two per instructor on the road. CBT is training, not a pass or fail test, and the DL196 certificate you issue at the end is valid for two years.

Beyond CBT there is CBT renewal, introduction to motorcycling sessions, gear conversion, A1, A2 and category A training, module 1 and module 2 preparation, the Enhanced Rider Scheme and refresher work. We also train riders for some of London’s largest delivery and public-sector fleets, so fleet and corporate days come round regularly. What you are given depends on what your certificate covers.

Where you would work

Seven centres, six across London and one in Hertfordshire. Tell us which is nearest and that is where most of your work will be.

• Alperton, our London HQ, 82 Sunleigh Road, Wembley, HA0 4LR
• Croydon, 2 Ampere Way, Croydon, CR0 4WT
• Edgware, The Hive London (Barnet FC), Camrose Avenue, Edgware, HA8 6AG
• Eltham, Charlton Park Rugby Club, 60A Broad Walk, London, SE3 8NB
• Wimbledon, Goals Wimbledon Car Park, Beverley Way, New Malden, KT3 4PH
• Dagenham, Goals Dagenham, Ripple Road, Dagenham, RM9 6XW
• Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, Rye Road, Hoddesdon, EN11 0EH

Hours and days

Courses run seven days a week at most centres, and Saturday and Sunday are our busiest days, so weekend availability matters. We are looking for instructors who can take around four days a week, weekends included, because that is the pattern our diary needs. There is no rota and no guaranteed number of days: we offer assignments and you accept the ones you want, which is how a contract for services works and how we keep your self-employed status clean.

The volume behind that is real rather than seasonal. DVSA issued 193,575 CBT certificates (DL196) to approved training bodies in Great Britain in 2025/26, up 7.3 per cent on the 180,425 issued the year before, while the register of instructor certificates stood at 1,849 at the end of March 2026 (DVSA, Driving instructor and motorcycle instructor register data, tables INS0201 and INS0203, last updated 25 June 2026, data to March 2026). Certificates are issued to training bodies in books rather than one per course, so treat the first number as a measure of demand rather than a course count. The direction is not in doubt: there are more learners than there are people to teach them, in London most of all.

What we ask for

A valid DVSA certificate, a full and clean category A motorcycle licence held for at least three years, age 21 or over, a passed criminal record check, the legal right to work in the UK, confident English, and your own motorcycle insured for instruction. DVSA sets the age, the record check and the legal licence minimum. The full, clean category A is our own standard on top of it, and the rest of our list is short. We also ask that you live within 30 miles of any of our training centres, since most of your work will come from the site nearest home.

Licence, age and record

You must be 21 or older and have held a full category A2 or A motorcycle licence for at least three years (GOV.UK, Become a DVSA assessed CBT motorcycle instructor, checked 17 August 2026). An automatic-only licence or a category A1 licence does not count (DVSA ATB manual, 2.1). You need to read a normal number plate in good daylight at 26.5 metres (ATB manual, 2.1), and you need a basic criminal record check issued within the last six months (ATB manual, 2.28).

Our own entry standard sits above the legal minimum: a full and clean category A licence. DVSA accepts category A2 and we ask for full category A, and that one is our rule rather than a DVSA requirement.

A basic check costs £21.50 in England and Wales. GOV.UK says it usually takes up to three days for the application to be processed, then a paper certificate is posted out (GOV.UK, Request a basic DBS check, accessed 17 August 2026). You will need a fresh one at every four-year certificate renewal (ATB manual, 2.26).

Right to work and English

Bring a passport, and a share code if your passport is not British. English needs to be confident and fluent, because you are teaching road safety to people who have to act on what you say while moving. Another language is genuinely useful here rather than a box to tick. Our centres teach across most of London, and our public site is published in several languages besides English.

Your own motorcycle

Yes, you need one. You provide your own motorcycle for the work, insured for motorcycle instruction use, taxed, MOT’d where required and roadworthy. We provide the training motorcycles your students ride, along with cones, barriers and site equipment. Our instructors are not insured to ride company motorcycles on the road, so your own machine is the one you work from. We ask to see the insurance certificate and schedule, and we ask again if anything changes.

The induction, and what it asks of you

The induction is free and it is administrative rather than a training course. We check your licence and your DVSA authorisation, take your right-to-work and payment details, submit a fresh certificate application to DVSA in our name, walk you through our sites and our paperwork, and then start offering you assignments. There is nothing to pay at any point.

Step by step, this is how it runs.

1. A conversation first. Which centres are near you, which days you can work, what your certificate covers and when it expires.
2. The agreements. A confidentiality agreement and our standard services agreement. They carry business-protection terms and terms covering how either side ends the arrangement, and we go through all of it with you before you sign anything rather than after.
3. The documents we ask for. A copy of your passport; a share code if you do not hold a British passport; a copy of your UK driving licence; the cover of a bank statement showing the account number and sort code we pay into; your Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR); and your current home address for our accounts records. If you have not got a UTR yet, register for self assessment with HMRC and send it on when it arrives.
4. Your DVSA authorisation. A certificate of authority belongs to the training body that applied for it and is only valid for courses run for that body (ATB manual, 2.43), so we submit a fresh application for you. DVSA aims to process applications within ten working days (2.42). You cannot teach until the certificate is issued, and you carry it whenever you are teaching (2.41 and 2.44).
5. The reading. The current DVSA ATB manual, the national standard for driver and rider training, the CBT syllabus and guidance notes, DVLA licence checking, and our own operating procedures. Our methodology and materials are written in house and refined over 20 years. They stay our property, which is standard, and we say so plainly at the start.
6. Kit and access. Site keys and access codes are issued to you in person and are never published anywhere. Radios are the one thing worth sorting before day one: see ‘What we provide, and what you provide’ below.
7. First assignments, with someone to call. You start on your own sites, with a supervisor you can reach when a question comes up. Our director, a motorcycle instructor for almost two decades, leads the mentoring.

How you are engaged and paid

You work with us as a self-employed contractor under a contract for services, and you are paid commission on the courses you deliver. You invoice monthly in arrears and we pay undisputed invoices within 14 days. You look after your own income tax and National Insurance. There is no PAYE and no employment benefits.

Are motorcycle instructor jobs self-employed or PAYE?

Self-employed. We are not offering employment and we are not going to describe it as though we were. You look after your own income tax, National Insurance and VAT if it applies to you, we make no deductions, and self-employed contractors do not receive holiday pay, sick pay, a pension or any other employment benefit.

Subject to DVSA rules, site rules and safety, how you deliver the training is your professional judgement. With our agreement you may send a suitably qualified and DVSA-authorised substitute if you cannot make an assignment you have accepted. We would rather you knew all of this before applying than found it out in month two.

How and when am I paid?

You invoice monthly in arrears, by the fourth working day of the following month, showing dates, locations and what you delivered. We pay undisputed invoices within 14 days. Payment is earned on completed assignments, so if a session is cancelled for weather, site availability or a DVSA reason, it is paid when the rescheduled session runs.

That is the honest version, and it is worth knowing before you start rather than after.

What we provide, and what you provide

We provide the training motorcycles your students ride, the sites, cones, barriers, course paperwork and the booking system that fills your days. You provide your own motorcycle and its insurance, your protective kit, your phone, and your travel and business costs.

Radios are yours. You bring your own radio kit and we do not issue one, so budget for it before day one. As a working minimum we suggest at least two instructor transceivers with charged spare batteries, at least two microphones (they fail in cold and wet weather, which is exactly when you need them), three or four charged receivers for students, five or six earpieces with straight leads, and a camera that holds charge with an empty memory card and a spare battery. If you want a hand setting radios up, channels and sensitivity, your supervisor will sort it with you.

How much do motorcycle instructors earn?

Pay is commission on the courses you deliver, invoiced monthly and paid within 14 days. It is not a salary and there is no hourly rate. What you earn tracks two things: how many days you work, and what your certificate lets you teach, because full licence training carries a higher rate of commission than CBT.

Instructors working with us earn up to £300 per day. Read that as the top of the range and not as a floor, a salary or a guarantee. Pay is commission on the courses you deliver, so the figure in any given month follows the assignments you accept and what your certificate covers, and there is no guaranteed number of days. The commission rates behind it are in the schedule to the services agreement, and we go through them with you before you sign anything.

Market context, so you can measure ours against it rather than take our word for it. A north and east London advert live in July 2026 quoted £160 a day for CBT-trained instructors and from £200 a day for the better qualified and more experienced (Bikejobs, posted 21 July 2026, re-checked live 17 August 2026). Lightning Motorcycle Training publishes £186.30 a day for self-employed DAS-qualified instructors (lightningpass.com, accessed 17 August 2026). Camrider publishes a ladder that runs from £80 to £110 a day down-trained and £90 to £130 a day once assessed by DVSA, and says pay rates reflect large cities such as London where housing costs are high (camrider.com, accessed 17 August 2026).

Standards checks, supervision and staying qualified

You should take at least one DVSA standards check in every four-year period you are registered as a motorcycle trainer. DVSA arranges it with your training body, it is held at your own training body during a normal CBT lesson, and DVSA does not charge for it (GOV.UK, Motorcycle trainer standards check, checked 17 August 2026). Approved training bodies also have to monitor every instructor at least four times a year (ATB manual, 2.49). We run that monitoring properly, and it is most of what keeps you ready.

Two practical things about the check itself. You need two or more pupils in the lesson or you fail it, unless your lesson records show you regularly train one pupil as your normal structure, and your mentor and the training body’s authority holder cannot take part. At a school running courses seven days a week across seven sites, having two pupils booked on the day you are called is not something you have to worry about. You are scored from 0 to 3 across 17 areas of competence in three groups, lesson planning, risk management, and teaching and learning skills, each measured against the national standard for driver and rider training.

Beyond the check, the housekeeping is yours and we remind you of it: certificates last four years (ATB manual, 2.45), renewal needs a fresh basic DBS check (2.26), and DVSA must be told within seven days of any conviction, motoring or otherwise (2.2 to 2.3). You work alongside well over twenty DVSA- and MCIA-qualified motorcycle instructors, so when a difficult trainee or an awkward call comes up, there is always someone who has already had it.

Do you work outside in all weathers?

Yes, and you should count on it. CBT runs on site and on the road in most conditions, and the road element goes ahead in rain. Sessions are cancelled for genuinely unsafe conditions, not for discomfort. Payment is earned on completed assignments, so a session stopped for weather is paid when the rescheduled session runs.

Good kit is not optional in this job.

Not qualified yet?

If you do not hold a DVSA certificate, this role is not open to you yet, but the route to it is. We fund instructor training for people who work with us at least four days a week for three years once they qualify.

You train in house, qualify as a down-trained instructor, and teach and earn from the point DVSA issues your certificate, with the DVSA assessment booked later. There is preparation you fund yourself before the in-house programme starts, including advanced riding training with a recommended specialist advanced-riding school, and the guide sets out exactly which parts those are. The full route, what it costs elsewhere and what we ask in return: how to become a motorcycle instructor in London and Hertfordshire and work with us.

Common questions

How to apply

The form is below. Add when your certificate expires and anything you are certified for beyond CBT, because that changes what we can offer you once your certificate is issued.