A swim instructor teaches swimming techniques, swimming strokes, and water safety rules to students with varying levels of swimming abilities, assists more experienced swimmers to enhance their swimming abilities, and assesses the progress of students and adjusting teaching programs accordingly. They monitor students to prevent accidents or injuries, implement ground rules, plan swimming sessions that take into account student's abilities and progressive development, identify incorrect swimming techniques, and correct students appropriately ensuring that the swimming pools and locker rooms are kept clean and tidy.
As a rule, they require certain skills such as CPR and first aid and American Safety Instructor and Basic Swim Instructor certifications. They should have sound knowledge of proper swimming techniques and water safety, effective communication skills, and be passionate and enthusiastic.
A high school diploma or GED is enough, plus being an experienced swimmer, for example a retired professional swimmer. On average, they earn $24,852 per year, which translates to $11.95 per hour. Though generally, they earn anywhere between $18,000 and $35,000 a year.
How to Become a Swim Instructor
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a swim instructor. For example, did you know that they make an average of $11.84 an hour? That's $24,631 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 13% and produce 45,700 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Swim Instructor Do
There are certain skills that many swim instructors have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed customer-service skills, listening skills and motivational skills.
How To Become a Swim Instructor
If you're interested in becoming a swim instructor, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 66.8% of swim instructors have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 4.5% of swim instructors have master's degrees. Even though most swim instructors have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a swim instructor. When we researched the most common majors for a swim instructor, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or high school diploma degrees. Other degrees that we often see on swim instructor resumes include associate degree degrees or master's degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a swim instructor. In fact, many swim instructor jobs require experience in a role such as lifeguard/swim instructor. Meanwhile, many swim instructors also have previous career experience in roles such as internship or volunteer.
Swim Instructor Career Paths
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a swim instructor can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as nanny, progress to a title such as lead teacher and then eventually end up with the title account manager.
Average Salary for a Swim Instructor
What Am I Worth?
Top Skills For a Swim Instructor
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 23.1% of swim instructors listed lifeguard on their resume, but soft skills such as customer-service skills and listening skills are important as well.
Choose From 10+ Customizable Swim Instructor Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Swim Instructor templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Swim Instructor resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Swim Instructor Demographics
Swim Instructor Gender Distribution
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among swim instructors, 68.0% of them are women, while 32.0% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among swim instructors is White, which makes up 72.7% of all swim instructors.
- The most common foreign language among swim instructors is Spanish at 56.7%.
Online Courses For Swim Instructor That You May Like
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Best States For a Swim Instructor
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a swim instructor. The best states for people in this position are Washington, Idaho, California, and Nevada. Swim instructors make the most in Washington with an average salary of $38,589. Whereas in Idaho and California, they would average $35,271 and $35,091, respectively. While swim instructors would only make an average of $34,685 in Nevada, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Nevada
$34,685
Avg. Salary
2. Oregon
$33,672
Avg. Salary
3. California
$35,091
Avg. Salary
How Do Swim Instructor Rate Their Jobs?
Top Swim Instructor Employers
Most Common Employers For Swim Instructor
| Rank | Company | Average Salary | Hourly Rate | Job Openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Goldfish Swim School | $24,631 | $11.84 | 128 |
| 2 | KIDS FIRST Swim Schools | $24,631 | $11.84 | 108 |
| 3 | Waterworks Aquatics | $24,631 | $11.84 | 65 |
| 4 | Bear Paddle | $24,631 | $11.84 | 42 |
| 5 | SafeSplash Swim School | $24,631 | $11.84 | 32 |
| 6 | Rose Bowl Aquatics Center | $24,631 | $11.84 | 19 |
| 7 | Scott County Family YMCA | $24,631 | $11.84 | 19 |
| 8 | YMCA of Austin | $24,631 | $11.84 | 18 |
| 9 | Bolingbrook Park District | $24,631 | $11.84 | 18 |
| 10 | American Red Cross | $23,969 | $11.52 | 34 |