For anyone with an interest in health and fitness, many career options are available to you. Turning your passion into a career or a side hustle is often a good choice and becoming a personal trainer could be a direction to head down.
It can be hard work, but many benefits to being a personal trainer are worth taking a closer look at. So, if you’re considering a career helping others reach their health and fitness goals, here’s what you need to know about being a personal trainer.
Being a Personal Trainer – Not 9-5
There’s lots to consider when we’re looking at what makes a good career choice. For some people, becoming a bank manager is a good choice of career, while for other people, that would be their worst nightmare. So if you’re considering whether becoming a personal trainer is a good option, you have to think about what interests you.
Those interested in physical activity and a healthy lifestyle would be far less interested in a 9-5 job where they’re chained to a desk all day. Job satisfaction is always an important factor to consider when thinking about future careers. So if you have dreams of running your own business and a passion for exercise and keeping fit (and helping others to do the same), then becoming a personal trainer could be one of the best career decisions you ever make.
How Much do Personal Trainers Earn?
This is a tricky question to answer. Personal trainers can earn very different salaries, depending on the kinds of employment they sign up for. They can go self-employed, find work in gyms or fitness centres, or even work on cruise ships and in hotels or resorts.
Whatever kind of employment you’re looking for, being a personal trainer can be a very lucrative career choice. During Covid, more personal trainers than ever registered as self-employed and began running personal training sessions remotely, which meant a much wider pool of potential customers.
Looking closer at how much personal trainers earn in the UK, it’s clear that self-employed earning potential varies depending on where you’re located and how many clients you have. For those working in gyms and other locations, salaries will vary depending on your experience. The more experience you have and the more services you can provide (such as sports massage or nutrition qualifications), the higher your potential to earn as a personal trainer will be.
Is Being a Personal Trainer a Flexible Career?
While a fitness instructor is likely to be more restricted in terms of the hours they work, a self-employed personal trainer has the choice to be as flexible as they prefer. Fitness instructors generally work in gyms, fitness centres, or leisure centres. There’s a lot more flexibility for personal trainers, mainly due to the option of going self-employed. And there is no reason why you could not combine this with your studies!
Being a self-employed personal trainer, you can work where you want and how often you want. So if you decide to offer group classes on the beach, one-on-one sessions in your local gym, or even if you stick to remote sessions only, a self-employed personal trainer has control and flexibility over their daily responsibilities. You can even choose who you work with, which is always a career bonus!
Is Being a Personal Trainer a Rewarding Career Choice?
Not everyone is as interested in the money side of things and is more focused on whether being a personal trainer is a rewarding career choice. Like everything else when considering a career, it’s all about what you’re looking for.
If it’s something you’re considering, then there’s a good chance that being a personal trainer is a rewarding career choice for you. Of course, it’s not a career to consider if your only interest is in getting fitter and healthier yourself. The main role of a personal trainer is to help other people reach their fitness goals. So if you get pleasure from seeing real-world results as a result of your hard work, then it’s certainly a career where that will happen.
Personal trainers cover a lot of ground from helping others overcome health challenges, injuries, or disabilities, to being able to motivate them in effective ways (everyone requires different kinds of motivation). However, everything you’ll be doing will be focused on helping other people. So if your dream career involves helping others, then becoming a self-employed personal trainer could be more rewarding than you think.
First Steps to Becoming a Personal Trainer
If you think that becoming a personal trainer might be a great career option for you, the good news is that it’s a relatively simple career to break into. You’ll need an accredited qualification, such as a Level 3 Personal Trainer Diploma. However, you’ll find that personal training courses tend to be completable in your own time through a blended learning approach that comprises online and in-person classes and theory work.
Of course, if you’re going the self-employed route, you’re also going to need some core business skills. You’ll be a one-man band, so you’re going to have to find your clients, manage your accounts as much as your time, and maintain a professional outlook at all times. Then there’s marketing and promotion and finding a niche that your competitors aren’t focused on.
Personal Trainer – a Rewarding Career
Becoming a personal trainer isn’t for everyone. For those that get enjoyment from helping others while having a passion for health and fitness, it could end up being a dream career or a side hustle you engage with while at university. Make sure that you do your research to know as much as possible about what to expect.
The best thing about this career is that you have so much control over it. Many advantages to becoming a personal trainer include deciding who you work with, how many hours you work, and how much you charge. It can be hard work, but being a personal trainer is an excellent career choice for those who love helping people and want more say in their work lives.