Teaching is a profession that increasingly straddles the line between employment and self-employment. You might be a full-time teacher with PAYE income who tutors privately in the evenings. You might be a supply teacher working through an agency, technically employed but with a very different financial profile to a permanent member of staff. Or you might be a full-time private tutor — perhaps running your own tuition business, perhaps working online for clients across the country.
Each of these situations has its own tax position, and combining more than one of them in the same year makes it more complex still.
At Hayes Chartered Certified Accountants and Tax Consultants, we work with teachers and tutors across London and the UK — from primary school teachers picking up weekend tuition work to full-time online tutors running established private practices.
If you earn income from private tutoring — even if it’s alongside a main teaching job — you need to declare it. Income from private tutoring is self-employed income, which means it goes on a Self Assessment tax return, and you’re responsible for paying tax and National Insurance on the profit.
The registration deadline for Self Assessment is 5 October following the end of the tax year in which you first earned self-employed income. Many tutors miss this because it doesn’t feel like running a “proper” business — but HMRC doesn’t distinguish between a large tuition centre and someone tutoring two pupils a week from their kitchen table. Both need to be reported.
What reduces your taxable profit is your allowable expenses — and there’s more available to tutors than many people think.
The standard test for allowable business expenses is that they are incurred wholly and exclusively for business purposes. For tutors, this can include:
Workbooks, past papers, subscriptions to revision platforms.
If you conduct lessons from a dedicated room in your home, a proportion of household costs may be claimable.
If you use Zoom, Teams, or a specialist tutoring platform, subscription costs are allowable
If used exclusively for tutoring work
Courses, qualifications, and CPD directly relevant to your tutoring work
Website costs, tutoring directories, local advertising
Full migration support from Self Assessment to MTD.
The cost of using Hayes to manage your accounts is itself a deductible expense
This is probably the most common situation we see in this sector. You’re employed at a school — tax is handled through PAYE and looks straightforward. Then you start tutoring privately, and suddenly you have a second income stream that doesn’t have tax deducted at source.
The employed income and the tutoring income need to be declared together on a Self Assessment return. The total is assessed against your Personal Allowance and tax bands. It’s entirely possible for the tutoring income to push you into the higher rate band if your teacher’s salary is already at or near the £50,270 threshold — and that needs to be planned for, not discovered in January.
Supply teachers occupy a specific position. You may be employed by an agency on a PAYE basis, which means tax is deducted at source. But the nature of supply work — multiple schools, different pay rates, periods of no work, potentially working through more than one agency — means your tax code is more likely to be applied incorrectly, and a Self Assessment return is often necessary to ensure you’ve paid the right amount overall.
It’s also worth confirming whether your agency is genuinely employing you or whether there’s an umbrella company arrangement. Umbrella companies have their own tax treatment and associated costs, and the net pay position is sometimes less favourable than it appears.
We help supply teachers understand their actual tax position, confirm whether they’ve paid the right amount of tax through PAYE, and file Self Assessment returns where needed.
Online tutoring has grown significantly, and many tutors now earn income through platforms like Tutorful, MyTutor, or directly via their own websites — sometimes with pupils based overseas.
Income earned through platforms is still taxable UK income if you’re UK resident. Where a platform takes a commission, that commission is a deductible expense. Where pupils are overseas, the income is still taxable in the UK in most cases — though double tax considerations occasionally arise.
We help online tutors understand exactly how their platform income feeds into their tax return and what records they need to keep.
If you’re a teacher or tutor — employed, self-employed, or a mix of both — and you want your finances handled accurately and efficiently, we’re ready to help.
Hayes Chartered Certified Accountants and Tax Consultants — London-based, working with educators and tutors across the UK.
Call us on 020 8646 0800, WhatsApp us on 07429 584191, or fill in the contact form on our website to arrange an initial conversation. No obligation, no jargon.
Yes, if it takes your total income above your Personal Allowance or if your self-employed income exceeds £1,000 (the trading allowance). Even below that threshold, registering and filing keeps everything clean and avoids issues later if your tutoring income grows.
Not purely because of your teaching job, if PAYE is operating correctly. But if you have tutoring income, rental income, investment income, or any other untaxed income above the relevant thresholds, you’ll need to file a return.
Potentially, yes. If you use a room exclusively and regularly for tutoring — setting it up as a teaching space, not using it for other purposes — a proportion of home running costs may be claimable. There are also potential Capital Gains Tax considerations if you later sell your home, which we factor into our advice.
No. Most platforms pay you gross income (minus their commission) and have no obligation to operate PAYE. You’re responsible for declaring that income to HMRC on your Self Assessment return.
UK-resident tutors are generally taxable on worldwide income. If your overseas pupils are simply paying you in a foreign currency, it’s still UK taxable income. We advise on currency conversion and record-keeping for international tutoring income.
There are a lot of ways you can contact Hayes Chartered Certified Accountants and Tax Consultants (HCCA),
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WhatsApp : 07429584191
Email : info@hayes-accountants.co.uk
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