How To Become A Private Tutor: What It Is and Career Path

What is a private tutor and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted experts

Dr. Cynthia Carver,

Karen Chandler Ph.D.

If you got some detailed and advanced knowledge of a particular area or subject, have the necessary qualifications, and adequate patience and communication skills, working as a private tutor may be a flexible and well-rewarded career choice for you. Becoming a private tutor has a wide range of benefits. Not only does it have massive financial perks and unique flexibility, but it also gives you a chance to have a significant and meaningful impact on a student's academic and personal life.

Being a private tutor, you may provide specialist one-on-one educational assistance to students to enhance their learning across different subjects and prepare them for academic qualifications or tests. Working as a private tutor, you may schedule private tuition sessions around a full-time job and other job commitments such as study, parenting, or traveling. Moreover, if you've just completed your third-year university degree or fresh graduate, you may do online teaching, which has now taken up a massive percentage of the tutoring market.

In addition to self-employment, you may work in schools, libraries, community centers, colleges, universities, and tuition centers, where you may have the complete freedom to teach the syllabus in the way that you deem to be the best.

Now, how to become a private tutor? Generally, there are no statutory or formal qualifications needed to become a professional tutor. However, earning a degree in core educational subjects such as English, languages, science, art, or math may be particularly useful.

To be successful, you must be able to promote your qualifications and expertise in your discipline. Whatever your areas of expertise, tutoring is undoubtedly an enjoyable, rewarding, and flexible way to boost your income by helping students of all ages to reach their full potential.

What general advice would you give to a private tutor?

Dr. Cynthia Carver

Associate Professor & Chair, Oakland University

Be prepared to work hard - your first year of teaching will be demanding - but know that you are doing important work. We are the profession that makes all others possible. And don't forget to ask for help.

ScorePrivate TutorUS Average

Salary

3.1

Avg. Salary $39,474

Avg. Salary $59,228

Diversity

9.6

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.50%

Asian 11.89%

Black or African American 9.56%

Hispanic or Latino 15.95%

Unknown 5.86%

White 56.24%

Gender

female 65.85%

male 34.15%

Age - 42

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 42

Stress level

3.9

Stress level is moderate

7.1 - high

Complexity level

5.3

Complexity level is intermediate

7 - challenging

Work life balance

9.4

Work life balance is excellent

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a private tutor

Explore private tutor education requirements

Most common private tutor degrees

Bachelor's

71.1 %

Master's

14.8 %

Associate

7.3 %

Start to develop specific private tutor skills

Skills	Percentages
Mathematics	20.35%
Math	17.29%
GRE	9.16%
Language	6.44%
Organic Chemistry	5.47%

Complete relevant private tutor training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New private tutors learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a private tutor based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real private tutor resumes.

Research private tutor duties and responsibilities

Used different tools to achieve student success such as the whiteboard, websites, and role playing.
Tutor high school and middle school students in a variety of subjects, including math, statistics, chemistry, and economics
Communicate lesson plans weekly to strengthen student proficiency in algebra, geometry, trigonometry and history.
Assist with internet research, edit and proofread written assignments.

Prepare your private tutor resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your private tutor resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a private tutor resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable private tutor resume templates

Build a professional private tutor resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your private tutor resume.

Apply for private tutor jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a private tutor job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How did you land your first private tutor job

David Case

Private Tutor

Japanese - Chinese - Korean for starters. Now I have had students from over 90 countries.

Japanese - in 1987 a visiting professor and his wife from Tokyo came to Blacksburg, VA for a year of sabbatical at VA Tech. We met weekly and worked on common vocab words and story sharing - them and us (my wife and I).

Chinese - during and after the Tiannamen incident in 1989 we met many PRC students dealing with the trauma and heartbreak of what was happening. Spending time crying with and encouraging them led to friendships, laughter, lots of English practice and lifelong friendships.

Korean - 2010 - a Korean visiting scholar and her dentist husband came with their two children to George Mason University in Fairfax, VA for a year of sabbatical leave from her university in Seoul. Her husband fell in love with learning and speaking the English language. To this date, 15 yrs later, he and I have hourly conversational English lessons 3 nights per week - he loves it.

In addition to these 3 examples, I developed an English School for int'll newcomers to the Washington DC area and we had students from over 90 different countries come to our classes and conversational 1 on 1 groups over a period of 25 yrs.

It has always given me a chance to see US (the USA and us/we, the people) through others' eyes and that has kept me a learner as well as a teacher.

It also led me to write a book on the "blessings and lessons" of cross cultural friendship and exchange. It is called, I'd Like You to Meet My Neighbor. (Amazon)

It has also led me to visit them then when they return to their homelands - China, Korea, Turkey, Canada, Germany,...and maybe more someday.

How do private tutors rate their job?

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Private tutor reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Feb 2020

Pros

The pedagogical autonomy. Teaching is an art and every year is (and should be) different. I recreate goals, programs and targets according to the needs of the students each year. Maine is an incredible place to teach as it doesn't require 3 page (or more lesson plans for each day. The admins are supportive and teachers are encouraged to improve and change their craft as needed.

A zippia user wrote a review on Jul 2019