Boot Camp Instructor Salary Explained

If you’re thinking about becoming a boot camp instructor, or you’ve recently qualified, you’ll be curious about the boot camp instructor salary expectations.

Here at OriGym, we’ve done the hard work for you to bring you this comprehensive article on everything you need to know about potential pay.

We'll cover:

• What is the Average Boot Camp Instructor Salary?
• 7 Factors that Influence a Boot Camp Instructor Salary
• How Does a Fitness Instructor Salary Compare to Other Fitness Careers

Before we start, one of the best ways to boost your salary is by becoming a master personal trainer with our Personal Trainer Diploma. Find out about these and all of our courses by browsing our downloadable course prospectus! 

What is the Average Fitness Boot Camp Instructor Salary?

Because the majority of boot camp instructors are self-employed or work on a freelance basis, getting concrete figures for the average fitness boot camp instructor salary in the UK can be difficult. 

While some boot camp instructors work by running individual boot camp classes on a fixed day and time, others run set programmes that run over a number of weeks. 

This makes it even more difficult to break down how much they earn on an hourly, weekly, or monthly basis. 

Glassdoor lists the average boot camp instructor salary as £30,819, but they get this number from self-reported salaries:

These may be full-time employees in a gym or fitness centre, so can often be misrepresentative. 

It can also be difficult to get averages because often this role will be fulfilled by people who have become a PT in general, rather than a role dedicated solely to boot camps.

As guidance for this, according to indeed, the average personal trainer salary is £25,529:

If you do work on a freelance basis or even start your own boot camp business, you can earn much more than this minimum wage as you’ll be free to set your own rates.

How much you earn will therefore be determined by:

• How many boot camps you run
• How many people attend your boot camp
• Your pricing structure 
• How much you charge 
• Whether you have additional income from other classes or PT sessions

We’ll have a little look at these now!

7 Factors that Influence the Boot Camp Instructor Salary

#1 How Many Boot Camps You Run will Affect Your Boot Camp Instructor Salary

One factor that can impact your boot camp instructor salary is how many boot camps you run and how regularly you run them. It goes without saying that the more you run, the more money you’ll make.

There is no industry standard for the number you should teach or hours you need to work. Especially when you’re self-employed, you’re in complete control of when you work, and how many hours you do.

This means that your earning capacity is essentially unlimited, depending on your own motivation and the capacity you have to source what you need for each boot camp!

You’ll also need to consider that whilst spending 30 hours running boot camps sounds good in principle, this might not be practical with such a physically demanding role. 

You’ll need to make sure you allow time for the administrative side of the role too, including:

• Planning boot camps
• Your PT marketing strategy
• Signing up new clients
• Managing payments

#2 A Boot Camp Instructors Salary is Determined By How Many Attendees They Have

As boot camps are predominantly group-based, a big factor in your boot camp instructor salary is the attendance numbers. 

The standard size of a boot camp class is 6 to 10 people, though this varies depending on the type of class you’re teaching and your level of experience as an instructor. 

Let’s say, as an example, that you charge £10 per session on a pay-as-you-go basis (meaning there is no membership and people may drop in and out as they please).

If you run the boot camp twice per week for eight weeks, you stand to make between £960 (for 6 attendees) and £1,600 (for 10 attendees).

There’s other ways of boosting your attendance numbers and creating packages that make your income more reliable as a PT doing boot camps. 

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Check out our other articles for more hints and tips in this area:

• How To Become a Group Fitness Instructor
• Group Fitness Instructor Tips
• 23 Alternative and Unusual Fitness Classes

#3 Mastering Your Pricing Structure Can Mean Earning a Higher Boot Camp Instructor Salary

There’s a few different pricing structures to choose from, depending on how you want to work. Our advice is to establish a fair fee and stick to it! You can choose from:

• Offer subscription based memberships
• Pay-as-you-go where individuals pay per session 
• A block payment for a certain number of sessions or period of time

While pay-as-you-go is a terrific way to attract new employees, you should ideally get cash flow up front. This is where an eight or ten-week program comes in handy.

Bulk-buying sessions is another great option, giving you more money up front, but it means reselling to your client every time this block has been spent.

That’s why the subscription model is the best because you’ve got a steady stream of income, that you can rely on every month, and there’s no explicit end date.

You will usually have a plan whereby for a client to cancel their subscription they have to give a certain amount of time’s notice.

This is more reliable income and means that you can manage your finances more easily.

You can play around with different class structures and prices to see what suits your style of teaching best.

For example, Battle Bootcamp has three tiers of payment and membership options, split into the number of classes a client can take per month, from five to unlimited:

Giving too many options can adversely affect your membership base, so try to stick to four or five maximum. 

#4 How Location Affects Boot Camp Instructor Salary

One of the biggest considerations when launching your boot camp business is where you’re going to work. 

This is true of any career with the increased wages in the South to match the cost of living. For your boot camp instructor salary this also applies to whether you live within a city centre.

These central locations tend to have more demand than rural ones and so tend to drum up more business and so will earn more due to volume of work as well as the cost of the bootcamps themselves!

Don’t fret, though! For boot camp instructors in rural areas you can utilise more free spaces like parks, cutting down on rent costs of a studio.

Check out our article on personal training in parks for more information on the permits and permissions you might need to do this!

#5 Qualification Will Affect Your Boot Camp Instructor Salary

If you don’t hold any certifications in personal training, then the demand for your camp will be lower, affecting your boot camp instructor salary.

The more knowledgeable you are, and the greater your skills, the more popular your boot camps will be as people want to feel like they’re in expert, experienced hands!

This is why it’s so important to get the best level 3 personal trainer qualification. This will deepen your existing understanding and allow you to work one-on-one with individuals.

If you become a personal trainer rather than just a fitness instructor you’ll be able to work anywhere and gain valuable experience with a range of different clients and needs. 

In fact, most boot camp instructor positions will want you to be a qualified PT, as you can see below:

This is why getting your qualifications along with CPD fitness courses is so important. When you invest in yourself, you can also charge much more when you’re able to provide a more well-rounded and varied boot camp!

#6 Getting Some Experience Will Boost Your Boot Camp Instructor Salary

As we mentioned briefly above, the length of time you have been qualified and teaching for will have an effect on your boot camp instructor salary in the UK. 

It makes sense that the longer you have worked, the more knowledge you will gain and the more confident people can be in your abilities to get results!

The time you spent gaining this head start against your new competitors should be rewarded with a salary increase. 

One of the best ways you can do this is work in a variety of different settings once you’re qualified.

Some examples include:

• Become a freelance personal trainer and work across several different gyms and leisure centres
• Do as much outdoor training with clients as you can so that you’ve got experience in several outside locations for boot camps
• Make sure you have experience in a range of different fitness classes, developing the skills and styles of training needed for a boot camp!

#7 Building Your Reputation Will Earn You a Higher Boot Camp Instructor Salary

When you start out and you’re trying to boost your boot camp instructor salary one of the best things you can do is to develop a good reputation with your existing clients and class members.

This provides what’s called ‘social proofing’ to potential customers and boot camp attendees! People are much more likely to trust the opinion of people who’ve tried your services, especially people they know.

One way you can do this is to gather personal trainer testimonials from people attending your boot camp!

You can use these in your personal training marketing strategies and will help you to charge more for your expertise!

If people can see that other people have had a positive experience and you’re well reviewed then you’re much more likely to be able to charge more and have a high boot camp instructor salary!

How Does a Fitness Instructor Salary Compare to Other Fitness Careers

Before we get into how your boot camp instructor salary in the UK can be increased, you may want to compare and contrast it to some of the other popular careers in the fitness industry:

This is something to bear in mind when you remember that there’s potential uncapped earnings when you’re running your own boot camps and running your own boot camp business!

Before You Go!

Hopefully now you know what you might expect from a boot camp instructor salary and things you can do to increase it!

Don’t forget to check out our Personal Trainer Diploma which will allow you to increase your expertise and cater to more clients either by training large groups or people on a 1-on-1 basis. You can find out more about our courses by downloading our free course prospectus!