How much can you earn as an exercise instructor for older adults?

• These figures come from licensed Move it or Lose it instructors, who set their own prices, keep 100% of their class income and teach under a brand older adults already trust. We take no percentage of what you earn.
• The average Move it or Lose it class costs £7.17 per person. A class of 15 at £7 is £105 a class; a class of 30 in a larger venue is £210.
• At £7 a head with 15 people, five classes a week for 48 weeks is £25,200, ten is £50,400 and fifteen is £75,600 — before venue hire.
• That compares with £17,000–£27,000 a year for an employed fitness instructor working 35–37 hours a week, often evenings and weekends.
• Overheads are low and most are tax-deductible, and many instructors add to their income by selling equipment to their participants.

Almost every article about fitness instructor pay in the UK is about employed gym staff on an hourly rate. That is not this job. Teaching exercise classes for older adults in your community means you are self-employed: you choose how many classes you run, you set the price, and what you earn is what the classes bring in minus what they cost you to put on.

The figures on this page come from licensed Move it or Lose it instructors. They teach under a name older adults and venues already know and trust, their classes are listed in our national class finder, and they get marketing and business support from us. That matters, because the hardest part of this job is not the teaching but filling the room, and a trusted brand helps a new class fill faster. You can teach older adults independently once you are qualified, but you would be building your reputation from scratch.

So here are real numbers, including the parts most training providers leave off the page.

How much do you earn per class?

The arithmetic is refreshingly simple. Your income from a class is the number of people in the room multiplied by what you charge each of them.

Across our instructor network, the average class price is currently £7.17 per person, so we have used £7 throughout this page. A well-established Move it or Lose it class is often 20–30 people, where the venue can safely accommodate them. We have deliberately used a more cautious 15 for the figures on this page.

15 people × £7 = £105 for a one-hour class.

Fill a big hall with 30 people and the same hour brings in £210. Run a smaller class of eight and it is £56. This is the single most important thing to understand about the job: your earnings are driven by how full your classes are.

Earning potential: what a year looks like

Most instructors build up gradually, adding classes as word spreads. These figures assume £7 a head, classes of 15, and 48 teaching weeks a year — leaving four weeks for holidays:

Two honest caveats, because a table like this is easy to misread:

These are gross figures, before venue hire and other costs. They are what comes in, not what you keep.

They assume classes of 15 — deliberately below the 20–30 an established class often reaches, so a full class of 30 would double them. But a brand-new class does not start with 15 people in it. It starts with five or six, and grows. Building to ten full classes a week is a realistic goal over a couple of years, not something that happens in month one.

What you actually keep: a worked example

Here is what you actually keep from ten classes a week of 15 people, once the costs come out, with venue hire at £25 an hour:

That is roughly £36,900 for about ten hours of actual teaching a week, plus preparation and admin, with no evenings or weekends. Venue hire is the figure that moves this number most — a church hall at £12 an hour instead of £25 adds around £6,000 to that total, which is why we tell trainees to research local venues before they commit to anything.

And that is before any income from selling equipment to your participants, which we cover below. Some instructors do considerably better than this. Kimberley, who came to us from a PA and part-time carer background as a single mother, now teaches 13 classes a week and earns over £4,500 a month, working between 10am and 3pm around the school run.

What does it cost to set up?

This is a low-overhead business, which is the main reason people choose it over a franchise:

• Venue hire — your biggest ongoing cost, and entirely dependent on where you are. Community centres, church halls and village halls are usually far cheaper than leisure centres.
• Insurance — our bespoke instructor policy, written specifically for delivering exercise to older adults, costs £48 a year for licensed instructors or £127.79 a year if you are not licensed.
• Music licence (PPL PRS) — if you use recorded music, you need your own licence. Even if the venue holds a music licence, it does not cover you as the instructor. As a guide, PPL PRS quotes £345 a year plus VAT for three classes a week in a village hall or community centre.
• Equipment — a small amount of portable kit: resistance bands, balls, a reliable music player. There is no floor or mat work in our programme.
• The Move it or Lose it licence — optional, £24 a month by direct debit. That is roughly the income from one participant per week.
• Training — the FABS Training Programme is a one-off cost, and there is an EMD UK bursary worth 65% off the fast-track route if you already hold a Level 2, subject to their eligibility rules.

How this compares with the average fitness instructor

Most published figures for fitness instructor pay are for employed gym and leisure-centre roles. Here is how those compare with running your own older-adult classes:

¹ National Careers Service, fitness instructor job profile. ² CIMSPA Careers Hub, based on UK job adverts from January–December 2024.

To be fair to both sides: an employed role comes with holiday pay, sick pay and a pension, and you carry none of the costs. As a self-employed instructor you pay for your venue and you are responsible for filling your classes. But in our worked example, ten daytime classes a week earns around £10,000 more than an experienced full-time gym instructor — without the 35-hour week, the evenings or the weekends — and there is no ceiling on how far you can take it.

More ways to boost your income

Class fees are the core of your income, but they are not the only part:

• Selling equipment and products. Participants often want to keep exercising at home between classes, and they trust your recommendations. Many instructors sell resistance bands, balls and other Move it or Lose it products direct to their groups. Licensed instructors buy equipment at a discount, which leaves room for a margin when you sell on.
• Block bookings. Selling a term or a block of classes up front smooths your cash flow and keeps attendance steady.
• Care and retirement settings. Your training qualifies you to teach in care homes, retirement housing and one-to-one or small-group sessions, alongside your community classes.

What can you claim against tax?

As a self-employed instructor you pay tax on your profit, not on everything that comes in. HMRC calls the costs of running your business allowable expenses, and for this work they typically include:

• Venue hire
• Your instructor insurance and the Move it or Lose it licence fee
• Your PPL PRS music licence
• Equipment for your classes, and stock you buy to sell on to participants
• Marketing: flyers, posters, advertising and a website
• Business travel between venues — HMRC’s simplified rate is 45p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles in a car
• Business use of your phone
• CPD courses that update the skills you already use in your business

One thing to know in advance: HMRC’s rules on training costs generally do not allow the cost of a course that gives you new skills to start a new business, so your initial training is unlikely to count. CPD once you are up and running usually does.

If your turnover grows past £50,000, you now also need to keep digital records and file quarterly under Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. That threshold falls to £30,000 from April 2027 and £20,000 from April 2028. Ten full classes a week at £7 is over £50,000, so it is worth using simple bookkeeping software from day one.

We are not accountants, and everyone’s circumstances differ — a short conversation with an accountant when you set up is money well spent.

Why we are not a franchise, and what that means for your money

People often find us while searching for franchise opportunities, so it is worth being clear about the difference, because it is a financial one.

A franchise typically charges a substantial upfront fee, takes a percentage of your turnover, and restricts where you can operate. We do none of those things.

You are self-employed and you keep 100% of your class income. There is no franchise fee, no territory you have to buy, and we do not take a cut of your takings. The £24 a month licence is a flat fee, whether you run two classes or twenty.

What the licence buys you is the thing that actually determines your income — help filling the room:

• Use of the Move it or Lose it brand, which older adults and venues already recognise
• A listing in our national class finder, on a website that attracts substantial search traffic from people looking for exactly these classes
• Marketing materials and campaign resources
• Monthly video tutorials with new exercises and choreography, so your classes stay fresh
• Ongoing business and teaching support, regular Zooms and an instructor community
• Discounted CPD and equipment

Instructors who choose not to license are free to teach independently — but they cannot use the Move it or Lose it or FABS names in their promotion.

Is it enough to live on?

Be honest with yourself about which of these you are:

A second income or a semi-retirement wind-down. Three to five classes a week, £15,000–£25,000 gross, daytime hours only. This is what a large proportion of our instructors do, and many are over 50.

A full-time income. Ten or more classes a week. This is very achievable, and plenty of our instructors have done it — Kimberley now teaches 13 classes a week and earns over £4,500 a month, all between 10am and 3pm. You will not be building it on your own: as a licensed instructor you get your listing in our class finder, marketing materials, business support and a community of instructors who have been exactly where you are. Most people add classes steadily as word of mouth spreads, so your first few months are about getting your first classes established and full.

An add-on to existing fitness work. If you already teach, older-adult classes fill the daytime gaps between your evening and weekend sessions, using the same hour and the same venue relationships.

What nobody’s qualification prepares you for is the marketing. Filling a room week after week is the skill that separates instructors earning £8,000 from instructors earning £40,000 — and it is the main reason the licensed network exists.

Common questions

How much do fitness instructors earn in the UK?
According to the National Careers Service, employed fitness instructors earn from about £17,000 a year when starting out to £27,000 when experienced, for a 35–37 hour week that often includes evenings and weekends. Advertised group exercise roles average £20.03 an hour, according to the CIMSPA Careers Hub. Self-employed community instructors are paid differently: they earn per class, so at £7 a head with 15 people, one hour of teaching brings in £105. Ten classes a week is £50,400 a year before costs — you pay for your venue and you are responsible for filling your classes, but you set the price and the hours.

How much should I charge for a class?
The average Move it or Lose it class currently costs £7.17 per person. Look at what other classes in your area charge before setting yours, and factor in your venue hire. Many instructors also sell block bookings.

Do I need a qualification first?
There is no legal qualification you must hold, but insurers and venues expect relevant training. We have written a full guide to fitness instructor qualifications in the UK.

How long before I am earning?
The FABS Training Programme is around 35 hours of eLearning at your own pace plus two assessed practical days, so you can be teaching within roughly 6–8 weeks. Building a full timetable takes considerably longer.

Am I too old to start?
Around half the people we train are over 50, and for many this is a semi-retirement career rather than a first one.

Who am I learning from?
Move it or Lose it is a CIMSPA Education Partner rated “Enhancing” — three stars, the top of CIMSPA’s quality assurance scale, roughly our industry’s equivalent of an Ofsted “Outstanding”. The programme was developed with the Centre for Healthy Ageing Research at the University of Birmingham and is endorsed by CIMSPA and EMD UK.