Facts, figures and finances: Teaching yoga in the 21st century

My hope is that someone thinking about teaching yoga might read this and realise that such work can be poorly paid and has its challenges. Look before leaping is excellent advice…

I started teaching yoga in October 2001. Right from the start, I was teaching full time. I was fortunate: I had some financial security (having bought a house in 1997) and I was well connected with other teachers.

I remember a few years later, one of my main teachers – Sarah Powers – giving this succinct advice to a person wondering about being a yoga teacher: “don’t give up the day job.” That advice was too late for me as I had already given up the day job – and I was doing ok. I had given myself six months from the start of teaching: am I enjoying this work – and is it financially sustainable? Luckily, the answer was ‘yes’ to both questions.

The average pay for yoga teachers then was about £30 for a one-hour class. The most I ever taught in a week was 18 classes; that was a lot and I felt depleted and exhausted after teaching so many. It was a bit like industrial yoga with an assembly line of classes. Not sustainable.

In 2007/8, my earnings from yoga teaching  (after costs and before tax) was £26,500. This was sustainable because of my low housing costs and reasonably low-cost lifestyle. And I very much liked teaching; many people are in jobs that they find difficult and demanding. Of course, there are problems with teaching. However, I appreciated its freedom and its creativity. I felt fulfilled and still do after 23 years of teaching.

My earnings last year (2023/4) were £32,500 – after costs and before tax. In 2024, the average income in the UK was £35,800 (before tax). I really love teaching and I also recognise how deeply tricky it can be for more recently qualified teachers who might not have the levels of financial security that I had when starting to teach. 

After 12 years of teaching, I began running five-day trainings and a 200-hour TT. This was a healthy stretch of my abilities and an important lesson about the value of experience. The fact is that experience cannot be trained; it can only be experienced. Thus the need for sustainability –as yoga teachers potentially (not always!) can get better over time. 

I still run trainings. What has helped these courses to be so much more doable for me is that other people teach sessions on them. I pay these other teachers £300 for a three-hour session. In 2017, I began working with an assistant. She does all the course admin plus deals with my website, financial records and social media. I pay her £25 per hour and she is worth every penny; she does about 30 hours of work for me each month. My other costs include about £2200 to accountants; about £1500 to Mail Chimp (for my newsletter); and about £5000 every year on course materials. It all adds up.

For three-hour workshops, the charge is £40 (with a few places available on bursary of £20). For the five-day courses, the charge is £595 (with 20% of places at bursary of £297.50). I also mentor teachers; the charge is a sliding scale of £50 to £90 for one hour. I regularly see a supervisor; I pay her £90 for one hour. To be honest, I am surprised how few yoga teachers get mentoring. It can be a crucial way to enhance our skills.

As well as a weekly class, I teach about four workshops a month, about three retreats and about ten courses a year – and mentor about six teachers. I would estimate that approximately 60% of my income comes from courses; 20% from retreats – and the other 20% from the workshops, the mentoring, the weekly class and book sales.

What I have learnt over time is the absolute necessity of support and transparency. We all need helping hands – like trees need sunlight and flowers need rain. And getting good support can help us to be transparent. Sometimes things are really awful: expressing that and exploring solutions can be very useful. And sometimes things are really wonderful: celebrating that can be a way of remembering our successes.

I believe that as yoga teachers we need to raise our gaze and be paid more fairly. The good news is that some studios and gyms have increased rates of pay in the last two years. The average rate of pay is now maybe about £35 per hour. However, that hourly figure needs to be divided by at least 2.5 to allow for the extra work (class preparation, admin, social media). It all adds up. And there are many variations of pay: from small studios to a teacher running their own class, from corporate classes to privates, from less experienced teachers to more experienced, from exclusive deals to just running retreats. Personally, I am paid £40 per hour at my weekly class (as it is a 75-minute class, this means that I am paid £50).

After teaching yoga for a long time, being reasonably successful and working hard, I recognise some of the obstacles and I feel fulfilled by this work. Balancing factors such as ensuring accessibility, appropriately valuing our work and prioritising our sustainability is not easy. Realising the complexity of circumstances (such as levels of personal financial security) is vital. Openly talking about our rates of pay and how much we charge can be a start. Making connections with other yoga teachers can be a way to lessen the competitive impulses and encourage collaboration.

 Through connecting and supporting, the stronger and more sustainable we can be.