Why tutoring in Edinburgh is a real income, not a side hustle
The Edinburgh market has a quirk that helps tutors: parents here are happy to pay for academic support earlier than in most UK cities. By Year 5 (P6 in Scotland) families targeting George Watson’s, Stewart’s Melville, Heriot’s or the Edinburgh Academy are already tutoring. By S4 (Nat 5 year) Higher prep is well underway in Morningside, the New Town, Bruntsfield and Murrayfield. That gives a tutor a 7-8 year window per family if you’re good — primary, Nat 5, Higher, Advanced Higher, then the younger sibling.
A serious tutor in Edinburgh can build a 15-20 hour weekly book within two terms. The maths is straightforward: 15 hours a week at £40 is £600/week, 40 weeks of the academic year, £24,000 from a side activity. Two of those hours back-to-back at the same family in Murrayfield (one student doing Higher Maths, the sibling doing Nat 5 Maths) is one journey, two billings, and a stable Tuesday-evening slot you keep for three years.
The platforms eat into this. At MyTutor’s 22%, that £600/week becomes £468. At TheTutorLink’s 5% it’s £570. Over a year that gap is £4,000 — a holiday, or three months of nursery fees. Tutors who treat tutoring as serious income switch platforms based on this maths.
What we look for from tutors
You don’t need a PGCE, but you need to know your subject at the level above the one you teach. A Higher Maths tutor should be comfortable with Advanced Higher content — that’s how you spot when a student’s underlying weakness is a missing AH-style concept rather than a Higher-specific gap. SQA past papers from 2015 onwards should be familiar; the new-style 2018 spec changes (Higher Maths in particular) are the boundary point.
Concrete checks:
- Can you mark a Higher English critical essay against the SQA marking grid and explain why a 16/20 isn’t a 18/20?
- Can you draw a clean SQA-style velocity-time graph in real time on a tablet?
- Have you sat or taught in the last three years? If not, your spec knowledge is probably stale.
- Do you have a PVG, or can you start the application this week?
- Are you available between 4pm and 8pm on at least three weekdays — that’s when 80% of the bookings land.
Tutors who tick these get matched fastest. We don’t run interviews — your profile, sample teaching video (optional but it helps) and trial-session conversion rate do the work.
Mistakes new tutors make
Charging £20/hour to “build a reputation”. You won’t. The Edinburgh parents who would have paid £40 read £20 and assume you’re a student, then book someone else. Start at the rate you intend to maintain. £30/hour for a brand-new graduate without teaching experience is fine; £18 makes you look amateur.
Saying yes to every booking. A tutor who agrees to a 7am Saturday slot in Cramond and a 9pm Tuesday in Portobello is going to burn out by Christmas. Set a window — say, 4-9pm Mon-Thu and 9am-1pm Saturday — and book inside it. Parents respect a tutor with structure. They don’t respect a tutor who cancels at short notice because they overcommitted.
Not following up after a session. Send a 3-line message: what you covered, what to practise, what’s next. Parents who pay £40/hour want to see that they’re getting £40 of value. The tutors who do this on TheTutorLink rebook at roughly twice the rate of those who don’t.
How to apply and what happens next
Click the apply link, build your profile (subjects, levels, postcode, rate, availability), upload your PVG when it arrives, record a 90-second intro if you’re comfortable. Once live, parents in Edinburgh can find you in search and book directly. Your first booking pays the platform 5% and you keep the other 95%, paid out weekly to your bank.
There’s no exclusivity — list yourself elsewhere if you want. Most tutors who switch realise within the first month that the 5% fee plus the absence of a pushy sales team is the better deal, and they consolidate. Free trial sessions are encouraged because they convert at 70%+ if you’re any good. Set a 30-minute free trial on your profile and let parents come to you. If you’d rather charge for the first session, that’s also fine — your profile, your rules.