The Datum Report

Occupation 3432 · Associate professional occupations

Sports coaches, instructors and officials

Half of full-time sports coaches, instructors and officials in the UK earn more than £30,108 a year, and half earn less.

Sports coaches, instructors and officials work with amateur and professional sportsmen and women to enhance performance, encourage greater participation in sport, supervise recreational activities such as canoeing and mountaineering, and organise and officiate at sporting events according to established rules.

How people enter it

There are no formal academic requirements although individuals must have experience in their sport and the relevant coaching and refereeing qualifications. Applicants to coaching courses must normally be over 18 years old and hold a first-aid certificate. Some courses encompass coaching awards within broader programmes of study. Vocational qualifications in coaching are available in the context of certain sports. Background checks including a DBS check are required for those working with children.

What the work involves

• coaches teams or individuals by demonstrating techniques and directing training and exercise sessions
• controls team selection and discipline and recruits ancillary staff such as coaches or physiotherapists
• monitors and analyses technique and performance, and determines how future improvements can be made
• deals with administrative aspects such as arranging matches, contests or appearances for athlete or team, and organising required transport and accommodation
• provides information and develops facilities to encourage greater participation in sport, and to enhance the standards of participants
• understands health and safety aspects of various activities and ensures any statutory requirements are met
• inspects and maintains specialised clothing and equipment
• manages the playing areas and competitors, starts race, competition or match and controls its progress according to established rules

Also called

Referee · Riding instructor · Sports coach · Sports development officer · Swimming teacher

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for sports coaches, instructors and officials, full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Year-on-year change

The change from each year to the next, in per cent, computed from the figures in the chart above — so the two cannot disagree.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 5 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

Classified alongside this

Fitness and wellbeing instructors · Sports players