20 April 2026 · 8 min read · By Harriet
This is the question that keeps teachers stuck. Not 'do I want to leave?' — most know the answer to that one already. The blocker is 'can I actually afford to?' Here's the honest breakdown of the numbers, from someone who did it.
Stop comparing it to your salary
When teachers ask 'can I afford to leave?' they usually mean 'can I replace my salary on day one?' That's the wrong question and it keeps people in classrooms for years longer than they need to be.
Your salary isn't your real number. Your real number is what you actually need to bring in each month to keep your life running. Most teachers I work with discover their real number is 30–40% lower than their take-home — once you strip out workplace pension contributions you can replace cheaper, commuting costs, work clothes and the £200-a-month coping spend that classroom life quietly creates.
The maths of group tutoring
Group tutoring is the fastest path to replacing a teaching income because it leverages the one thing teachers are already brilliant at — teaching multiple children at once.
At £35 per child in a group of four children, you earn £140 per hour. Six one-hour group sessions a week is £840 — roughly equivalent to M6 weekly take-home before tax. Six hours. Of actual tutoring. Compare that to a 50-hour teaching week.
Even charging conservatively (£25 per child, groups of three), you're at £75 an hour. Eleven hours a week matches M6. The numbers are genuinely on your side.
The costs nobody mentions
Public liability and professional indemnity insurance — around £80–£150 a year combined for a small tutoring setup. Cheap. Non-negotiable.
Resources — you almost certainly already have what you need. The biggest mistake new tutors make is buying piles of new resources before they have a single student. Don't.
Tax — set aside 25–30% of everything you earn from day one. A separate savings account. You will thank yourself in January.
The hidden upside
Holidays you don't have to negotiate. Pension you control. Sick days that don't trigger a leadership conversation. Pickup from school three times a week. The ability to take a Tuesday off because your child is in their nativity. None of these show up in a salary comparison and all of them matter.
I earn more now than I did on M6. I work fewer hours. I pay more into my pension by choice. I take holidays in term time. The financial argument for leaving teaching is much stronger than school will ever let you believe.
How to know if YOUR numbers work
Generic numbers only get you so far. Your situation has its own variables — partner's income, mortgage, childcare, debt, savings. The Ultimate Teacher Exit Plan includes a full earnings and exit calculator built specifically for UK teachers. You put your numbers in and it tells you what's actually possible.
Want the full step-by-step? See The Ultimate Teacher Exit Plan — the complete course for teachers leaving the classroom.
