What Does a Life Skills Instructor Do?

We looked at the average life skills instructor annual salary and compared it with the average of a direct support professional. Generally speaking, direct support professionals receive $1,233 higher pay than life skills instructors per year.

Even though life skills instructors and direct support professionals have vast differences in their careers, a few of the skills required to do both jobs are similar. For example, both careers require developmental disabilities, independent living, and incident reports in the day-to-day roles.

These skill sets are where the common ground ends though. A life skills instructor responsibility is more likely to require skills like "cpr," "kids," "adaptive," and "meal preparation." Whereas a direct support professional requires skills like "autism," "dsp," "home health," and "compassion." Just by understanding these different skills you can see how different these careers are.

Direct support professionals receive the highest salaries in the government industry coming in with an average yearly salary of $29,464. But life skills instructors are paid more in the professional industry with an average salary of $30,119.

Direct support professionals tend to reach lower levels of education than life skills instructors. In fact, direct support professionals are 8.2% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 1.1% less likely to have a Doctoral Degree.

Now we're going to look at the direct care professional profession. On average, direct care professionals earn a $611 lower salary than life skills instructors a year.

While the salary may be different for these job positions, there is one similarity and that's a few of the skills needed to perform certain duties. We used info from lots of resumes to find that both life skills instructors and direct care professionals are known to have skills such as "developmental disabilities," "independent living," and "incident reports. "

But both careers also use different skills, according to real life skills instructor resumes. While life skills instructor responsibilities can utilize skills like "cpr," "kids," "adaptive," and "meal preparation," some direct care professionals use skills like "autism," "social work," "compassion," and "behavior management."

Direct care professionals may earn a lower salary than life skills instructors, but direct care professionals earn the most pay in the government industry with an average salary of $29,735. On the other side of things, life skills instructors receive higher paychecks in the professional industry where they earn an average of $30,119.

In general, direct care professionals study at lower levels of education than life skills instructors. They're 7.9% less likely to obtain a Master's Degree while being 1.1% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.

The program counselor profession generally makes a higher amount of money when compared to the average salary of life skills instructors. The difference in salaries is program counselors making $12,976 higher than life skills instructors.

Using life skills instructors and program counselors resumes, we found that both professions have similar skills such as "developmental disabilities," "cpr," and "independent living," but the other skills required are very different.

There are many key differences between these two careers as shown by resumes from each profession. Some of those differences include the skills required to complete responsibilities within each role. As an example of this, a life skills instructor is likely to be skilled in "kids," "adaptive," "culinary," and "mental health," while a typical program counselor is skilled in "patients," "social work," "behavioral interventions," and "compassion."

Additionally, program counselors earn a higher salary in the health care industry compared to other industries. In this industry, they receive an average salary of $41,845. Additionally, life skills instructors earn an average salary of $30,119 in the professional industry.

Program counselors typically study at similar levels compared with life skills instructors. For example, they're 4.0% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 0.4% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.

Direct care staffers tend to earn a lower pay than life skills instructors by about $364 per year.

While their salaries may vary, life skills instructors and direct care staffers both use similar skills to perform their jobs. Resumes from both professions include skills like "developmental disabilities," "cpr," and "independent living. "

Even though a few skill sets overlap, there are some differences that are important to note. For one, a life skills instructor might have more use for skills like "kids," "adaptive," "meal preparation," and "culinary." Meanwhile, some direct care staffers might include skills like "patients," "autism," "role model," and "behavior management" on their resume.

Now, let's take a closer look at the financials in each career. The manufacturing industry tends to pay more for direct care staffers with an average of $30,329. While the highest life skills instructor annual salary comes from the professional industry.

The average resume of direct care staffers showed that they earn lower levels of education to life skills instructors. So much so that the likelihood of them earning a Master's Degree is 8.0% less. Additionally, they're less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree by 1.2%.