Your questions answered!
Tutor eligibility
Our tutors work for us on a self-employed basis. If you're a UK citizen, then you'll be able to do this on the UK Government website and should complete this before taking on any work with us.
If you're not a UK citizen but your immigration status allows you to work as self-employed in the UK, then you should check your Right to Work (link opens on the UK Government website) before applying.
If you're not a UK citizen and your immigration status doesn't allow you to work as self-employed in the UK, then you wouldn't be able to be a self-employed tutor with us.
If in any doubt, you can:
- Check your Right to Work
- Email us
Note that it is your responsibility to ensure you can register for self-employment before applying to tutor with us.
You don't need to have teaching or tutoring experience to be a tutor with us, as we provide full training and support; however, if you do have any such experience, please highlight this in your application.
If you're a qualified teacher, then you'll have a bespoke training route to reflect this.
To be a tutor with us, you need to have a minimum of grade 6 at GCSE (or equivalent) in the subject you wish to tutor.
If you’re successful in your application, we’ll need to see your GCSE certificates as evidence of achieving these grades.
If you attended school before the advent of GCSEs, please enter your O-level grades in the ‘Education Details' section of the application.
International qualifications
We accept international equivalents if you did not attend school in the UK, such as IGCSEs, WASSCE, or Irish Junior Cycle. Please fill out your qualifications in the ‘Education Details’ section.
For any questions about grade requirements, please get in touch.
If you don’t meet these grade requirements, but feel you have other relevant experience or mitigating circumstances, please contact recruitment@thetutortrust.org Please also let us know if you have alternative or equivalent qualifications, for example, an A-Level, or a degree (completed or in progress) in your chosen subject.
At Tutor Trust, safeguarding children and young people is our top priority. We ensure that all your necessary safer recruitment checks are complete before you begin tutoring with us, as per the most up to date statutory guidance
To tutor with us, you’ll need an enhanced DBS certificate that must be added to the Update Service. We’ll process this for you and cover the cost. You’ll also need two valid references, one academic or employment reference, and another personal. For more information on what safer recruitment checks you’ll need, please contact recruitment@thetutortrust.org
If you have lived in a country outside of the UK for a consecutive period of 6 months or more within the last 5 years you are advised to have an overseas police check completed. You should consult the UK Government's guide to criminal records checks for overseas applicants
No, you must be 18 or over and have completed post-16 qualifications. This is due to UK child employment laws and safeguarding requirements. Additionally, due to mandatory education until the age of 18, it is difficult to guarantee the consistent availability of under-18 tutors during school hours.
The application and interview process
The day before your interview, we ask that you return a ‘Self-Declaration Form’ which will be sent to you via email.
We will also ask you to send copies of the following:
- Original copies of your GCSE English and GCSE Maths certificates. If you have applied to be a science tutor, please also provide original copies of your GCSE Science certificate(s). If you need a replacement certificate, you can order a replacement.
- Two identification documents (e.g., your passport, driving licence, or biometric residence permit).
- One right to work document; this can be the same document as one of the above.
- One proof of address document.
We’ll give you more information on which identification, right to work, and proof of address documents we can accept following a successful application. If you can’t provide all these documents at your interview, you can still book an interview slot and provide these documents later.
During the interview, we will also need to see proof of photo ID on screen.
For more information on our data protection policy, please see here.
All our interviews take place on Zoom. Please ensure you have a quiet space and a strong internet connection in advance so that the interview can run smoothly.
Lasting roughly 30 minutes, you'll meet two members of our team and tell us your motivations for tutoring with us. You'll then talk about a scenario-based question that you will have been sent in advance. Finally, you'll perform a five-minute tutoring roleplay to show us some of your tutoring flair. You'll be sent this in advance.
Tutor training
Before you can apply for assignments, you'll need to have completed each stage of your core training. Your programme will differ if you are a qualified teacher or not. Our team will support you through your induction so you can begin tutoring as soon as possible.
While completing your induction, our Recruitment Team will be completing DBS and reference checks. Please keep an eye out for emails from us that detail what you need to do to help with this. Note that DBS checks are carried out by a third party, and the time it takes for them to be completed can vary and is out of our control.
Tutor Trust's Core Training ensures that you feel confident from your first tutoring session to deliver tutoring that has a real positive impact on young people's attainment, confidence and enjoyment of learning.
For most tutors, training will involve 10-15 hours over the course of 2-3 weeks. The training is all online and consists of a mix of self-paced learning on our Thinqi platform and live sessions with our in-house team and trainers from the University of Manchester
Training for Qualified Teachers is shorter.
Please see this page for full details of what our Core Training involves.
No, our training - and all ongoing learning and development - is provided completely free! It costs us over £200 to recruit and train each tutor. Therefore, we only ask that you be committed to tutoring if you choose to apply.
Once you've successfully completed training and all other onboarding checks, including references and your enhanced DBS, you'll be eligible to bid for tutoring assignments; however, the learning does not stop there!
You will have access to a wealth of resources and tutorials for tutors on our Thinqi platform. We also hold regular live online development sessions with our in-house team and secure a range of external experts to help us continue to upskill our tutors. These are all free to attend for our tutors.
We have bespoke Returning Tutor Training for tutors who wish to return and tutor with us, which is compulsory for any tutors who wish to tutor in the years following the academic year when they completed their initial Core Training. It is updated over summer for the September of each year with new strategies, guidance and processes.
In addition, in light of annual changes to Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSiE) it remains compulsory for any tutor to complete a Child Protection Refresher and two modules on Keeping Children Safe in Education 2024 as part of their Returning Tutor Training. Alongside this, returning tutors must complete The Prevent Duty every 2 years.
Some of our assignments require additional compulsory training to equip you with the essential skills to deliver tuition in certain contexts. These include (but are not limited to):
- Post-16
- Axiom maths
- Phonics
- Prince’s Trust
- Online Tutoring
This training may take place online, in-person or at the school/college where you will be working. If you are accepted to work on one of these assignments, your Programme Coordinator will be in touch with more details about your additional training.
What tutoring is like
We offer tuition in the following subjects:
- Primary English and maths
- Secondary maths
- Secondary English
- Secondary science
All tutors can apply to work on Tutoring Plus assignments to work with pupils with additional support needs, including those in Alternative Provision settings or Looked After Children (LAC).
In Primary, you’ll mostly work with Key Stage 2 students, although we have started offering some tuition in Key Stage 1 in early reading (phonics). In Secondary, you’ll mostly work with Year 10 and Year 11 students studying for their GCSEs, but we sometimes work with Key Stage 3 pupils. Occasionally we ask for primary-trained tutors to work in secondary schools (usually in Year 7) with pupils who have significant gaps in their learning. These assignments will be clearly advertised by our Tutoring Plus team.
We also offer tuition in post-16 settings, supporting learners with with GCSE resits.
You will work with young people who have been selected by their school/college as they have been identified as pupils who may benefit from some extra support. When you take on an assignment, you'll get any necessary information about the pupils you'll be tutoring so you can plan to personalise the sessions for them. This may include information relating to current grades, strengths and weaknesses, and any Special Education Needs and Disaibilities (SEND).
Most tutoring is during the school day (8am–4pm) inside the school/college building, during school/college term times. Assignment length ranges from an hour session, a morning/afternoon, to a full day.
You can apply for as many assignments as you wish, but we ask that you consider that each tutoring assignment typically lasts 15 school weeks. We follow the term timetable of partner schools, so tuition can sometimes run one or two weeks into the university holidays. Therefore, please check your availability before applying for an assignment.
The amount of available work varies depending on the time of year and the demand from schools/colleges and we cannot guarantee that work at a particular time or in a certain area will be available.
We work with schools across Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and Merseyside, so travel of up to an hour within your city region may be required to get to a tutoring assignment.
Assignments that require more than an hour's commute may have an uplift in pay to reflect this.
Once you've completed training, you'll be able to access details of tutoring assignments by location and day/time so you can decide which tutoring work you'd be able to take on depending on your schedule, existing commitments, and location.
We deliver the majority of our tuition in-person as this has been proven to have the greatest impact on the attainment of the young people we work with.
There may be some opportunities to tutor online, but as these are limited and in demand, we cannot guarantee the availability of any online work. Some of our post-16 tuition operates on a hybrid model, with a mixture of in-person and online tuition sessions.
This means that our tutors should be based in one of our three city regions: Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, or Merseyside, and willing to tutor in-person.
Pay and remuneration
We'll pay you a minimum of £22 to plan and deliver each hour of tuition, depending on your experience.
We pay our tutors on the 15th of every month by bank transfer for the hours worked in the previous month.
If you have QTS, we'll pay you £25 to plan and deliver each hour of tuition