21 of The best Side Hustles for Teachers in 2021

We have researched some of the most suitable side hustles for teachers and detailed them for you here. I think we all agree that earning a little extra on the side is something teachers shouldn’t have to do, but this is the world we live in with jobs uncertain and an economy swaying back and forth. It never hurts to prepare for that rainy day, or to use the skills you have developed over your years in education to progress yourself as well as your students!

Positions in tutoring, voice overs, organizing, sales, writing, editing, coaching all utilize skills that each and every teacher has. Working in Education offers multiple opportunities to earn supplementary income. The skills that teachers develop professionally are fortunately in high demand.

We explore some ideas on how to turn your already excellent skills into a little, and sometimes a lot, of extra income. It is exactly what we do here at Making English Fun.

There is money to be made in what is being called the Sharing economy, but this money varies fairly dramatically depending on the niche. Check out the infographic below from money management site earnest.com

Maybe it is time to start tidying that spare room! Although I would imagine most of us are not quite ready to set up a working BnB in our houses just yet you can see it has great earning potential. Lets take a look the less intrusive side hustles that teachers can do by using the skills they already have, rather than having to learn a whole new set!

1) Online Teaching

This is massive at the moment due to the Covid Pandemic. It is how huge numbers of teachers are delivering their day to day lessons, never mind any lessons on the side. This may put you off jumping back on to Zoom or Google Meet for some extra cash which it totally understandable. However the Pandemic with go and the demand will still be there. There are HUNDREDS of online teaching companies out there some first rate and some, well lets just say less so…

They also have different requirements and often require examples of your teaching. Mostly this is in the form of a 15 minute or so online interview lesson or similar. They also have, sometimes hidden and sometimes not. accent requirements. SO with that in mind I will link to a couple of examples from the USA and the UK who are well regarded and then a larger article that discuses more options. ( the word count on this article is already getting to crazy lengths – we all have a lot of transferrable skills being a teacher! )

VipKid are often talked about as a good stable option. Mainly for US teachers

Whales English: Were set up in 2013 and are recommended by a lot of teachers i know.

and as promised a link to a selection of 15 others Teaching online companies. We will do our own guide soon enough, but so much to write and only 10 fingers! This article is from GoAbroad.com who are reasonably authoritative in the ESL field. Which is where you will find most of these types of jobs.

2) A Baby Sitting Side Hustle

This side hustle is often overlooked unless you are still in high school but actually it is one of the best out there. You are paid to watch much less children that your day job, it can pay an average of 12 USD an hour and up to 18 USD. Children usually, and should, sleep early which gives you time to catch up on Netflix or another side gig!

As a teacher you should be in high demand as you have been police checked, have vast experience working with children and can offer little tutoring or homework help as added value or for extra money. Check your local area, or housing association website or newsletter to see if you can offer your services and make sure above all that its safe to do so!

3) Sell your Teaching Resources

The ways of doing this have increased over recent years and there are now quite a few to chose from. You may have even noticed up in our menu we have a shop sections and its something that we do. As teachers we have so many ideas, resources, thumb drives, USBs, worksheets and lesson plans floating around that it seems a shame to just let them sit and not earn anything. Websites like teacher pays teachers, Amazon Ignite and even Ebay all offer teachers the chance to polish up and post their resources and earn a little extra income. In some instances it is considerably more than a little income and there are teachers on Teachers Pay Teachers who have made this their very well paid day job. We will take a look at those two options below in a little more detail.

Teachers Pay Teachers:

We actually started here and still have a presence on this evergreen and popular platform. However there are some things to be aware of before you start. It is popular, it is crowded and the fees are pretty high. We sell smaller items at the moment as we haven’t got around to putting our larger bundle packs on there. Just for your information let me show you a fee structure for a 3.99 sale we had just yesterday.

As you can see there are fees and commission taken off your sale and the actual amount you end up with is less than 50% on a sale of 3.99. However if you have a lot of resources the volume of sales may make up for it. I literally do nothing to promote my resources on there so, I imagine I am not very high on their rankings, however every month $20 to $30 USD finds its way to me. So with a little effort making that figure grow would not be too much work.

They do actually have a Teachers Pay Teachers ‘‘premium seller package” which costs $59.95 a year. If you are selling significant amounts this would certainly be worth considering. The commission fees reduce to zero on all sales over $3 USD, and $0.15 on anything under. You also receive 80% of your sales amount rather than 55%. We put some of our premium workbooks on their today and will report back if it makes any difference, or was worth, upgrading in a month or so.

Amazon Ignite

Amazon, never to be left out of a money making scheme, have recently set up their own marketplace / platform for teachers to sell their resources on the mighty shopping site that is Amazon. It is invite only, but you can request an invite from here. At the moment it is only for teachers based in the USA though truthfully not 100% certain how they are policing that. The Store is here, so you can get an idea of the products that are currently one there, but being so new ( about a year) there is opportunity to be found if you already have resources to sell. Their commission is 70% to 30% to you and no fees if your product is over $3.00 USD. This has basically turned into the minimum price over there at the moment. The items are sold through Amazon and not a standalone website so, even with the huge amount of diversity on there, there should be plenty of eye on your products!

We have just started putting some items on there so will wait a month or two and see how they do, or dont!. So look out for a review in the new year.

4) Sell Your Own Stuff

Most of us collect items that we loved at the time, then fell out of love with they ended up under the bed, or thrown to the back of a cupboard . If this remark resembles you and you have boxes of these items in a closet or garage somewhere it may be worth sorting through them and having a clear out. It doesn’t necessarily mean taking it all to the charity shop, though that is the more altruistic thing to do! You can sell these things in a variety of ways. In fact some people make a pretty good living out of doing just this. You can sell items in your own garage sale, more common if you are in the US, in the local papers, on craigslist and Ebay, or in Car boot sales which are more common in the UK.

These options, especially car boot sales and garage sales offer other opportunities as well. More often that not people who do these are looking to get rid of their old stuff, maybe moving houses or downsizing, this means their driving aim is to get rid of it! So while selling your stuff you may be able to pickup some bargains from other sellers and then flip these either on other car boot sales or on Ebay / craigslist yourself.

My parents used to do this on a Sunday about once a month. It was a fairly easy 3-400 USD a month for them and a pretty nice day out as well.

5) Voice Over Work

My scratchy British voice doesn’t cut it for this type of work, but there are opportunities out there. I have even paid people to do voice over work on my own apps, to save my own self consciousness. However as teachers we are paid to talk every day and we develop skills at this. Friends of mine have voiced over things as varied as beer commercials to English exam listening exercises. Finding these can be a little challenging, although there are websites such as Upwork and Fiverr who have plenty of people offering their services. the pay can vary as much as the quality of work out there, but it does pay. You may have to set up a half decent microphone if you want to make a real go of doing this but if you can gain a reputation then it is possible to earn good extra money for not a great deal of work,

6) TV and Extra work

I have actually managed to do this on two occasions. I live in Asia so there is a pretty good demand for my particular ethnicity to appear in period dramas and similar. The money can be good, just check your visa to make sure you are allowed to do this if you are abroad already. There are many agencies who recruit for extra work and i will list a few below, however a simple google search in the location you are in will find more accurate results for you. It can pay pretty well for a side hustle but is far from glamorous! you may be up early and leaving late and are often reminded that you are basically a living prop on the set! Still its fun to squeal at the TV for the 2 seconds you are on it. Indeed have a concise guide on how to look out for Extra work. I got into it through a friend who just advised me to send in a picture. ( I’m not that pretty!)

7) Tutoring Side Hustles

I think most teachers have done this at some point, I certainly have, it may be a friend or a friend of a friend. A colleagues children or someone wanting some help with an upcoming exam. There is always a need to have some expert advice at certain times and teachers, whichever subject they teacher, certainly have that. Financially it can be very varied from 10 to 100 USD an hour depending if you are doing it corporately or for friends and of course your skills level and subject. The hours can be flexible and if you are doing this freelance or ad hoc then you can do as much as you want or need. It is possible to find agencies that offer privte tutors in most areas, but they will take a commision.

If you want to try to do this on your own then a simple advert offering your rate and subject in the local paper or Facebook groups should work quite well.

8) Make your Own Website

If you have a reasonable amount of time and some technical skills you could build a blog or website. However be warned it is a lot of work and time commitment, at least at the beginning, to make sure you can gain a following. It can earn a lot, or it can earn very little of course. While your website can be about anything you like, make sure you do research on your topic as you will really need to make sure you can write more than 5 or 6 articles before you lose interest. It really does require an article on its own but we will address the main issues here.

You will need to research which niche you want to go into, and then judge the competition. As its a side hustle you don’t have to necessarily beat them all but you will have to write enough and often enough to have your artlcles and you site rank.

It is possible, depending on your niche that you can either sell items, or try to make money through affiliates like ShareaSale or Amazon. If you manage to get large number of viewers to your site then you can sign up for Advertisement networks like AdSense and Ezoic.

9) Start a YouTube Channel

However please remember, and we speak from experience, the most important thing we can tell you is it is ALOT of work. We will be writing a more detailed description on how to set up a website, but in truth there are many already out there.

As teachers, most of us, have a distinct advantage over many other professions. We talk for a living, we have very little problem with over acting and performing, share knowledge to large groups of people and daily ( at least me) make fools of ourselves with little thought. The ability to do one, or all of these is rarer than you may think. It also lends its self really well to setting up a camera and putting yourself, or some of your lessons on YouTube. We are about to start this, in semi seriousness, in 2021. You will need half decent camera, some where that isn’t too noisy and some sort or starter video editing Software to jazz up your masterpiece. We use Wonder Share Filmora (and a couple of other sparkly ones that allow interactive videos and animations) and it suits us well as its EASY to use and doesn’t come with a months subscription which is really a blessing.

The advantages and disadvantages for teachers on YouTube is we are totally used to interaction. It takes a little getting used to speaking to a camera with no feedback, unless you set the mic up wrong 😉 . However with a little practice run or two it gets easier. There are tips and tricks to starting on YouTube and monetizing it is not going to be over night as they, as of DEC 2020, require 1000 Subs and 4000 hours of viewing time before they will allow you to run ads. However you can still run affiliates and Info Products on their which will get you started. In the beginning we would recommended not worrying to much about making money till you have some content ready.

However non of this will matter unless you grab that (steady) phone and start to record some ideas.

10) Write an Article for Making English Fun

We are always looking for writers here on Making English Fun. If you have a teaching tip, a pearl of wisdom or even a cautionary tale we are always willing to consider new writers. Take a look around our site first though to get a feel for how we do things here. We are a little different and you may notice our articles are a little more in depth than the average site out there. So if you think you can write 1200 or more words on a topic and make it answer an important teaching question then just drop us a line and let us know which topic you would like to write on. We are on info@makingenglishfuncom.wpcomstaging.com. Just put your article idea in your heading!

11) Summer Teaching Jobs

One of the benefits of teaching, at least university and school, is we get extend holidays in the summer. Although speaking from experience theses holidays are well needed and very over due at that point it is possible to make some money during them. There are cram schools, holiday centers, language schools and other extracurricular activities running all through the Summer holidays. You can also go abroad for 4 weeks or so on a ”busman’s holiday” and teach in another country. They might not pay as much as you earn in your home country but you save on the holiday costs!

12) Exam invigilator

There are exams for everything nowadays, and what may not be known to both the students and yourselves is that those people walking up and down the rows of students are not necessarily teachers, staff or anything related to the exam you are taking. There is an entire micro industry of people who will look officious and manage exams you take. You can get involved in this in your local area and earn about 20 USD an hour for the length of the exam.

It doesn’t include travelling or expenses, usually, but it never hurts to ask. These can be a little seasonal but there are always some exams going on somewhere!

13) Freelancer / Subject Writing

Not all of us have time or the knowledge to recreate a version of Teachers Pays Teachers but that doesn’t mean you have to miss out on earning a side hustle income online. Websites like Fiverr and Upwork offer all type of skills for a price. You will have to sign in and build a profile. You can then offer ”gigs” these can be anything you want, there are opportunities for almost anything, voiceover work (as mentioned above) blog post writing, advertising, video making literally anything. So if you have skills you use in teaching, or elsewhere, you can post up and offer and see who bites!

We use outsourced writers sometimes, although 90% of our stuff is written by us, so you never know, if you don’t want to go direct to us we might hire you on one of these platforms. The huge advantage is you can work as much or as little as you want to and you control your time no one else.

14) Drive for Uber, Grab or Lyft or Similar

Another relatively quick and easy way to side hustle, presuming you are over 18 and have a driving license, is to spend a few hours a week on a ride sharing service. You have to be sure this is for you before doing it but it can be a good money earner. The rules are country specific so check out the relative sites in your home country. The main ride sharing companies are Uber, Grab and Lyft. There may be more in your location. Always make sure that it is a legitimate way to earn in your country as it is not permitted in some areas.

15) Food Panda, Grab and Uber Eats

Food delivery is more popular than ever, due to lockdowns and restaurant closures. I find myself using them a couple of times a week. Finding work here is easier than driving services as you are not transporting people but food. It is possible to earn a pretty good income if you live in a urban area (where there will be more options for restaurant deliveries) There are reports of about 60-70 USd a day if you are working 5 or 6 hours and if there is enough business.

You will need a bike, motorized or other, to be able to travel from place to place quickly enough. ( it is possible to get work thought but I would think better to do faster and get more work! Food panda and Uber Eats seem to be the most popular but these type of service are appearing all over the world.

16) Virtual Assistant Work

If you find yourself with a set number of hours free or if you are going part time then you could consider becoming a virtual assistant. A virtual assistant Job role can be very varied, duties can include, managing emails, social media, Pinterest, Facebook accounts, writing or edit, scheduling appointments. Performing this role online this may not pay as well as working part time in an office, in fact in almost certainly wont. However you are able to work flexibly in your own time and to a set number of hours, and it is perfect for business who don’t have the work to hire people full time.

To start it is worth researching on Fiverr, Freelancer and Upwork to see if it suits your skill set, and if you are in Philippines or similar they often have dedicated websites for work.

17) Online Surveys

Although these may not pull in a lot of money they are not a huge amount of work. there are many companies that pay for opinions, especially marketing companies. It is possible to sign up and complete online surveys for them and get paid. I have done this a couple of times, they often require a certain age group or demographic so depending what they are looking for will dictate how much work you can get. Its not great money, at all, but as something to tick over if could be a few hundred dollars a year. They may pay you on PayPal, or through Amazon vouchers, and a certain amount of personal data is of course mined here.

18) Dog Walking / Pet Sitting

Dog walking is a nice little side hustle for animal loving teachers out there. You can start offering to your friends and then work up to the local community. Adverts on community notice boards and in local papers would get you more customers. Availability may be an issue with this type of work as you would need to available when they need you, which may not match up with when you have the time. However, pet sitting is an option that may suit working teachers better. Summer holidays, half terms could all be used to take in a couple of dogs and give them a home while their owners jet off on their holidays. Alternatively, it may be part of a house sitting deal, which would require you living in the clients house and taking care of that as well as the pets. The average salary for dog walking in the USA is about $12 USD an hour, which would certainly add up over he course of a month!

19) Sports / Outdoor instructor

Do you have a Hobby that you can turn into a side hustle? For a lot of years I was an outdoor pursuits instructor. I taught canoeing, climbing. sailing and archery. I left as the actual salary for this wasn’t going to be enough to retire or build a life on, but never gave them up as a hobby. For a few years after, while I was working full time, I used to spend a week or two a year returning to the centers I taught at as a seasonal instructor. Like the language schools mentioned above there is always an increase in demand over the summer, when children have free time, and with that demand comes a need for more staff.

When i did it full time It was getting paid for doing my hobby. That is the best way to earn any sort of income, and especially a side gig for a teacher! If you have a hobby you can instruct or many you are a PE or Sports coach you could look for summer jobs at camps or holiday resorts. There are plenty both home and abroad. One of the biggest in the UK is called PGL.

20) Translation

Language teachers have an additional option, or bi lingual teachers. It can be on Fiverr or something more lucrative but the ability to be able to translate into multiple languages is always going to be a sought after skill. Again Fiverr and other online jobs platforms have hundreds of opportunities for translators. If you can gain some experience here then you can move on to bigger and better options. The attractive side of these website is the complete flexibility they can offer. You set the time scale the rate and the frequency.

21) Web Research

This side hustle is a new one to us and we have gone through the application process. Which is an English comprehension test, a check of background qualifications, a few written questions an then a sample research request, which seemed a little cheeky to us as it would require about an hour or so to research and then send a fully written proposal. We will do this and report back. I would be interested in how many are accepted at this point and what they do with the research as well!

They have mixed reviews, but presuming w get through there recruitment procedure we will feedback here or in a new article.

22) Grade papers Online

If you still have the energy after a full week of classroom teaching, or just love grading, then there are multiple opportunities in the field to work online grading papers. These Online Grading jobs as often follow the school year. Online grading positions let you choose your own hours, often require at a minimum a degree and teaching experience is recommended and can be paid either hourly or by the amount of work you complete.

Four of the more popular online grading / evaluating companies are listed below.

• Measurement incorporated: This group recruit US residents only with a degree and proven ability ( can be proven during the application process) The majority of their work in English, Math and Science is from March to June. They also offer paid training.
• ACT: This group work with Pearson Education and you will be required to mark essays on their online system. This again requires US residents with a degree and teaching experience. It is possible to earn up to 12 USD an hour.
• Creative English Solutions: This Online grading company advertises on Flex jobs, and they often have positions that enable you to work anywhere. They focus on TOEFL and other English exams so require native English speakers with a degree.
• Pearson Education: These are the largest recruiter. The positions are both in house and remote working so you will have to trawl through them a little. (34 pages when we checked) but there are plenty of options, both for full and part time.

Yeah we know that was 22 items, but consider it a bonus for 2021! we all need one!

How much people make

Hi I’m Marc. A teacher of over 15 years, English, General Studies and Outdoor Education. Thought it was about time to sharing both what I have learnt during that time and the resources I have put together. On this site we aim to teach the theory and share our thoughts, but also go that one step further and give you access to the hard resources you need for your class or for you children