We all know that having a career as a Personal Trainer is a very popular choice – no matter where you are in the country, and probably the world – but, the question we want to explore is why?
Why Train to be a Personal Trainer?
Year on year many people decide to act on their vision of their perfect body, get some help and shed those few pounds. Nowadays, with the knowledge of nutrition and the impact diet can have on progress, even more people are working with personal trainers. This essentially means that a qualified personal trainer can now work as much (or as little!) as they want.
Personal Trainers can often be seen as an inspiring figure and someone to look up to for clients. This can also lead to a high level of job satisfaction through helping people achieve goals and often being the catalyst for a positive impact on clients’ lives.
Whilst working for or with a gym, you may even find they allow you free access to the gym in your personal time. Whether you’re working with a gym or doing private work, you’ll likely be naturally fit and healthy due to demonstrating exercise every day – and you’re getting paid for it!
For the more ambitious among us, it may even be a wish of yours to open your own gym. Sarah, a former student of The Training Room, opened her own gym ‘Red Strength’ and you can read more about her journey towards entrepreneurship
here.
Career Prospects
Once qualified as a personal trainer, there is a huge range of potential career routes to take; from the more obvious self-employed and gym-based personal trainer, to working for the likes of big sports clubs or even management within large gym chains (providing you work your way up, of course).
No matter which route you take, there are always benefits to each. For example, being a self-employed personal trainer allows you to choose your own days, hours and clients you take on, however, it is likely when you start out you’ll need to grind out 12 hour days to build your client portfolio whilst managing existing clients. This career path does prove to be very popular though, with around 4 in 5 personal trainers being self-employed.
If you decide to work for a large company, such as a national gym chain, this could garner great career prospects should you want to work your way up within the company – roles such as a national trainer or regional managers can earn you a very good salary.
If you’d like to get a better understanding of a typical working day, have a read of our
A Day in the Life of a Personal Trainer blog.
Salary Potential
As 80% of personal trainers are working for themselves, it’s difficult to interpret the accuracy of average yearly earnings. When you’re employed full-time by a gym, it’s a little easier and it’s estimated that you’re probably looking at a salary of around the £20k to £30k mark – the latter figure coming with more experience.
What should a private personal trainer cost? With self-employed work, it’s perhaps best to work out earnings at an hourly rate, and it’s common for a personal trainer to earn anywhere between £20 to £40 per hour. With this in mind, it is technically possible to earn up to £50,000 a year from taking on 5 client sessions every weekday (minus a 2 week holiday).
With more experience and through a stronger network of connections, a personal trainer can ultimately earn anything they see fit to charge if clients consist of sportspeople, celebrities and people of notoriety.
With any career, the more strings you add to your bow – such as specialised courses, which we’ll come onto – will only enhance your career pathways.
CPD (Continuing Professional Development) courses are a great development tool and can significantly boost your earning potential. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the CPD courses to consider:
- Kettlebell Training
- Studio Cycling
- Suspension Training Workshop
- Metabolic Circuit Training
- Gym-based boxing
Last year, we released a blog describing each of the above CPD courses with details of what the courses entail and how it can help you and your clients
here.
Heard enough to inspire you to take the next step towards a new career in Personal Training?
Find out more here