Driving Instructor CV Examples & Writing Guide

This sample is an Approved Driving Instructor with eight years teaching teenagers and adults at an independent driving school, who also runs theory test workshops and a fleet defensive driving course. The name and schools are made up. Swap in your own area, your ADI number, your pass rate and the cars you teach in.

A driving school is a small business with insurance premiums, a local reputation to protect and parents who complain. Four things decide whether you get called.

• Your ADI registration and your driving record. To charge for car lessons you must be on the DVSA register of Approved Driving Instructors, which involves three qualifying tests, a criminal record check and a full licence held for a set number of years. Give your ADI number, whether you hold the green badge or a trainee licence, and your last standards check grade.
• Pass rate and pupil numbers. Schools live on word of mouth. If you know your first-time pass rate, it belongs in your first three lines. If you do not know it, count your last 30 pupils and work it out before you apply.
• Who you can teach. 17-year-olds fresh from school, adults starting late, nervous drivers, older drivers coming back after a break, automatic-only learners, non-native English speakers. Each one is a group of paying customers the school may be turning away.
• Patience under stress. Sitting next to a 17-year-old joining a dual carriageway for the first time is the job. Show it with a story: the anxious-driver plan, the pupil who needed twenty lessons instead of ten, the mock test that caught a habit before the examiner did.

“Pass rate and the driving record, in that order. After that I want to know if you can take the students nobody else wants: the nervous ones, the adults who failed twice, the parents who want manual. An instructor who can teach those is worth two who only take easy teens.”

Three or four lines. ADI status, years, weekly hours, pass rate, and the pupil groups you cover. Use a career objective only if you are newly qualified or coming from professional driving.

The weak version is what most driving instructor CVs say. The strong version names the hours, the pupils, the routes or the outcome.

Numbers a driving school understands: in-car hours per week, pupils taught, first-time pass rate, retention or rebooking rate, workshop sizes, review scores, years without an at-fault collision.

This is the section that decides whether your application is even legal to progress, so put it near the top and be exact.

• Approved Driving Instructor (ADI) registration. To give paid car lessons in Great Britain you must be on the DVSA register, which means passing Part 1 (theory and hazard perception), Part 2 (driving ability) and Part 3 (ability to instruct), holding a full licence for a minimum period and passing a criminal record check. Give your ADI number and badge; check GOV.UK for the exact rules before you write numbers.
• Driving licence and record. Give the categories and how long you have held a full UK licence, and say "clean licence, no points" if that is true.
• Criminal record (DBS) check. Many of your pupils will be 17-year-olds, so schools want to see that the check made for your ADI registration is in place, and some ask for evidence.
• Emergency First Aid at Work or a similar one-day course from St John Ambulance or the British Red Cross. Not always required, but it reassures a school and a parent.
• Category C, C+E or D entitlement and a Driver CPC if you want to teach lorry or bus driving. HGV and bus driver trainers need real commercial experience, and the categories you hold matter.
• Any teaching qualification (such as the Level 3 Award in Education and Training), fleet or defensive driving trainer courses, or membership of an instructor association such as the DIA, MSA GB or ADINJC. List only what you hold.

Split teaching skills from driving skills. Schools hire on the teaching half more often than people expect.

Instruction:

• Lesson planning and graded route design
• In-car commentary and coaching
• Mock driving tests and test-day preparation
• Teaching nervous, anxious and older drivers
• Working with pupils with ADHD, autism or learning differences
• Theory test and hazard perception coaching
• Progress notes, readiness assessment and honest test advice
• Parent and guardian communication

Driving and vehicle:

• Dual-control vehicle operation
• Manual and automatic cars
• Defensive driving and hazard perception
• Parallel parking, bay parking, turning in the road, reversing and hill starts
• Motorway and dual carriageway driving, lane discipline
• Night, rain and winter driving instruction
• Daily vehicle inspection and fault reporting
• The Highway Code and DVSA driving test standards

Almost every driving instructor came from another job. Schools are used to it and they will train you on their routes, but they need to see three things.

1. 1Your ADI status. Say whether you are on the DVSA register, teaching on a trainee licence (pink badge), or have passed Part 1 or Part 2. Give a date.
2. 2Your driving record over years, not months. "Clean licence, 15 years, no points, no at-fault collisions" is the single strongest line a new instructor can write.
3. 3Any teaching or coaching you have done: training new starters, coaching youth football, tutoring, running toolbox talks. Teaching a family member to drive counts less, but a workplace training role counts a lot.
4. 4Your availability. Lessons for school and college pupils happen after 3pm, in the evenings, at weekends and in the holidays. A new instructor who can work those hours beats an experienced one who cannot.

• One page is usually enough. Two only if you also manage a school or train other instructors.
• Header: ADI status and number, licence categories, clean licence, and the hours you can work.
• Reverse-chronological with month and year for each job.
• Put qualifications above education if your ADI registration is your strongest asset, which it usually is.
• No photo, no date of birth. Age and appearance are not part of a UK CV.
• Send a PDF named lastname-driving-instructor-cv.pdf unless the school asks for Word.

Small driving schools often read CVs by hand, but national driving schools and fleet training companies use applicant tracking systems. Use plain headings, avoid tables and columns, and write out both "driving instructor" and "ADI" somewhere on the page, because job adverts use both.