Yoga Teacher Job Description (2024) | OriGym

If you’re thinking of starting a new career in yoga, our yoga instructor job description will tell you everything you need to know, so you know exactly what to expect from the role!

To give you a clear idea of exactly what the job description of a yoga teacher entails, we’ve broken it down into some key components for you:

• Responsibilities Included in a Yoga Instructor Job Description
• Skills Listed in a Yoga Teacher Job Description
• Qualifications Asked for in a Job Description for a Yoga Teacher
• Experience Required in a Yoga Instructor Job Description
• Hours You Can Expect to Work as a Yoga Teacher
• How Much Do Yoga Instructors Earn?
• Who Employs Yoga Teachers?

If you decide this is the career path you want to take, the best place to start is with OriGym’s Level 3 Yoga Diploma!

Or download and browse our complete course catalogue to see more details and other courses available!

Responsibilities Included in a Yoga Instructor Job Description

We’ll now look at some of the key responsibilities that are included in a yoga instructor job description, so you know exactly what you can expect from the role!

But first, if you're looking for advice on how to pursue employment opportunities, check out our in-depth exploration on 'How to Become a Yoga Instructor'.

#1 Planning and delivering yoga classes 

As you may have guessed, the majority of your job description as a yoga teacher will be to plan, deliver, and conduct yoga classes.

Whilst planning your lessons, you should be aware of the following:

• The level of ability of the students
• The style of yoga that you’ll be teaching
• Adapt classes based on what students are comfortable with in the class 

It’s important to be aware of these things to ensure you’re prepared as a yoga teacher, but also to make sure your clients get the most out of your classes!

The classes themselves will usually follow a similar structure and so you may be familiar with some of the key components already.

Usually, classes will be structured roughly as follows:

• Warm ups 
• A mixture of sun salutation, pranayama (breathing techniques) and asanas (yoga poses)
• Cool down
• Meditation or breathing exercises at the end of the session

This is the basic structure of a class and will obviously differ depending on the particular yoga style you choose to specialise in.

Understanding this structure, and sticking to the right order during your practice, will help to prevent any injuries as well as you and your clients getting the most out of the yoga positions!

Part of your training will also prepare you for differences in speed, position, and difficulty of the different styles of yoga.

As you can see below, it’s often stipulated in a yoga instructor job description that you will need to conduct classes for different abilities:

#2 Part of your yoga teacher job description is maintaining the studio 

Another important part of your job description as a yoga instructor is making sure that you keep the space where you teach classes clean and tidy.

As you can see below, this is something that’s often made explicit in a job listing:

You will be expected to contribute to the cleanliness and tidiness of the facility as a whole, wherever you’re working.

Not only is this important in terms of appearance, and the impression that you give your students, but it is important for health and safety too.

You need to make sure that there’s no risk of injury due to the studio not being clean or equipment not being cleared away properly.

#3 You’ll be responsible for some administrative tasks

As you can see below, administrative tasks are an important part of the yoga teacher job description:

As shown here, the administrative side of your role will include:

• Handling registration of new clients and students
• Maintaining logs of class members 
• Maintain calendars and schedules
• Managing basic business expenses such as logging when students have paid and haven’t etc.

The reason this is an important part of your yoga instructor job description is that you’ll be helping the facility to run smoothly.

You’ll also be able to use the information gathered for your own records and career progression.

For example, if you’re handling the logs of class members, and the numbers in attendance, you’ll be able to see which classes are the most popular.

This will be especially useful if you’re interested in becoming a yoga studio manager or running your own studio and independent classes because you’ll see what’s most appealing to class members!

Whether this is something you want to do or not, contributing to the running of a facility has a number of benefits including:

• Making your working relationships better due to shared responsibilities
• Making classes run smoother which will contribute to client satisfaction
• As a result, this will contribute to the popularity of your classes!

There’s some other administrative responsibilities with this role that we’ll cover later when we look at where you can work as a yoga instructor!

Skills Listed in a Yoga Teacher Job Description

We’ll now take a look at some of the interpersonal and practical skills that will often be asked for in the job description for a yoga instructor.

#1 You’ll need good communication skills as part of the yoga instructor job description

One of the most important things you’ll need to foster, when you start your career, is your communication skills. 

The main part of your job description as a yoga teacher would be communicating with clients directly as well as an entire class.

Arguably, the most important part of your job as a yoga teacher is communicating how to complete poses accurately and safely. 

You will also be responsible for gently making corrections, to students’ form, throughout the class.

Communication skills will also be vital for:

• Guiding meditations
• Working with staff members and communicating within the facility
• Discussing the class, or student’s needs, throughout or outside of class

As you can see, this is something that’s repeatedly asked for as it’s significant for building relationships with clients:

That’s why this is an essential part of the job description as a yoga teacher. If you can develop these skills you’ll be increasing your employability!

Then, if you foster these relationships when you land the role, people will keep coming to your classes, increasing your demand!

#2 Part of your job description as a yoga teacher will be to encourage people 

Yoga can be both a mental and physical challenge which is why being encouraging is such an important part of the yoga instructor job description!

In a general sense, you will need to encourage people just to turn up to your classes so you need to be able to extol the virtues of yoga for mind and body!

You will also then, during class, have to be encouraging to ensure students feel comfortable and positive about their practice.

You need to find the right balance between pushing your students and being mindful of their limits, encouraging them and congratulating them when they perform well.

As well as attending to students’ successes, you’ll need to find a way to encourage them to carry on. 

Whether it’s fitness motivation, or to improve their mental health, you can remind class members of their intentions as encouragement and support as they push themselves to improve! 

As you can see, in a yoga instructor job description like below, an emphasis is often placed on this ability:

So, you’ll potentially need to make sure you can explain how you would motivate students, and help them progress, to land a job!

#3 You’ll need to be punctual as part of your yoga instructor job description

Another important part of your job description as a yoga teacher is to be punctual and have good time management skills.

This will be important for a lot of the other skills on our list as everything you do will be to a strict time schedule.

For example, you need to be timely in your maintenance of the yoga studio, keeping it clean and tidy, because this will save others time and make sure that your class can start and end exactly on time.

You may also need to align your schedule with other yoga instructors and fitness professionals, such as personal trainers, who might be working with your client.

Being timely and punctual will therefore have a positive effect for you, your class members, and other members of staff in the facility where you work, helping everything to run more smoothly!

Most potential employers will look for this in a candidate, some even stipulating exactly what it is they will expect from you:

As you can see from this yoga instructor job description, you’ll be expected to arrive a certain amount of time before class to perform these different essential tasks.

This is why it’s something usually stipulated in the soft skills of a yoga instructor job description, like below:

#4 Part of the job description for a yoga instructor is being compassionate

An important part of the job description for a yoga instructor is to be compassionate and empathetic, especially when dealing with class members with less experience!

You want to be able to instruct people so that they feel comfortable and confident, with a desire to continue practising with you and at home. 

They won’t want to do this unless you can treat them with compassion and understanding if they struggle or need any extra help or guidance from you.

You will also need to have a level of compassion for intuiting when students need this extra guidance.

Students won’t always feel confident asking for help directly which is why it’s important to foster an appropriate level of emotional intuition and awareness with students.

This will mean that you can gently provide help, and see when they’re struggling with certain yoga challenges, without them needing to interrupt the class or explicitly ask.

A job description for a yoga teacher like below, will explicitly ask for this quality above many other interpersonal skills:

This is why it’s an especially important skill to foster if you want to make class members comfortable and boost your career prospects!

#5 Being flexible is part of the yoga instructor job description

Both figuratively and literally, being flexible will be an important part of your job description as a yoga instructor because you’ll need to be able to:

• Design a flow with a range of asanas, to a varying degree of difficulty
• Instruct students on how to do the poses themselves
• Be flexible with your schedule and the timetable

You’ll also have to be flexible based on the people that come to your class.

For example, you may get new students arriving whose abilities are slightly more advanced than anticipated. 

This means you’ll need to be flexible with your sequences, potentially on the fly, to keep your classes ideal for the members attending!

You will also need to be flexible with your time in order to cover other people’s classes, due to absence or illness, showing yourself to be adaptable.

This is something that will be repeatedly asked for in a job description for a yoga instructor, like below:

Being flexible with your style in this way, by covering others’ classes, will benefit your ability to teach a variety of people in a unique and bespoke way, attracting new clients and retaining existing ones!

The Qualifications Asked for in a Job Description for a Yoga Teacher

If this sounds like it’s the career path for you, any yoga instructor job description will ask for some specific qualifications as well as meeting the personal specifications of the role.

We’ll now look at these qualifications in more detail and how they’ll prepare you for the most vital parts of a yoga instructor job description.

Why You Should Get Qualified with a Level 3 Yoga Diploma

The first qualification you’ll need is a Level 3 Yoga Teacher Training qualification. This course will provide you with all of the practical and theoretical skills included in a yoga instructor job description.

On our own course, you’ll learn the anatomy and physiology of yoga helping you to understand some of the essential poses, and how the body reacts when doing them. 

This will help you to explain the physiological benefits of doing yoga and exactly why it’s such a boost to mental wellbeing and fitness levels, which is a vital part of the yoga teacher job description.

You will also be provided with the following skills, often cited in a job description for a yoga instructor, that will be immediately and directly applicable once you graduate:

• Planning a Level 3 Yoga Class - Here you’ll learn how to plan yoga sessions for individuals and special populations such as pregnant women, children, those with disabilities, and the elderly.

This will be especially important when you graduate because it will contribute to your flexibility and ability to meet the demands of whoever wants to learn from you!

• Delivering a Yoga Class - Not only will this help you to develop soft, interpersonal skills such as rapport and communication, but practically how to instruct class members during sessions with different pieces of yoga equipment.

You will also learn how to create a comfortable, inclusive environment ensuring you make your classes as attractive, and popular, as possible!

Obviously, the bulk of what you’re taught will be centred around the practical aspects of yoga and mastering the specific poses.

This is why it’s a vital qualification for starting your career as a yoga teacher and being prepared for the most significant parts of the yoga instructor job description. 

Why You Should Advance Your Knowledge and Skills With a Level 4 Yoga Diploma 

Building on the important skills of a Level 3 qualification, OriGym’s Level 4 Diploma in Yoga Teaching will not only deepen your existing knowledge but allow you to branch out further too.

With this qualification you can specialise in a particular kind of yoga, which will make your job prospects a little broader and open up some doors in terms of where, and how, you can work.

As well as furthering your understanding of different yoga asanas, you’ll learn breathing techniques, or pranayama, which are another key component of the yoga instructor job description.

These will be important when you’re designing your classes and discussing the benefits of meditation with your students.

Completing our Level 4 course will also allow you to specialise, choosing one of four different yoga styles to focus on, including:

• Hot Yoga
• Iyengar
• Ashtanga
• Hatha

This will be reflected in a job description for a yoga teacher. For example, if you’re interested in becoming an Ashtanga yoga instructor, doing a Level 4 course will help you specialise and streamline your skills so that you can apply for jobs like the one below:

This position demands specialist knowledge of Ashtanga and so you’ll be better equipped with courses like ours to fulfil further aspects of the yoga instructor job description. If you’re wondering what ‘300+ YTT’ stands for, we’ll cover that now in our next section on what you should look for in a yoga teacher training course!

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First though, if you’re feeling inspired and want to make yoga instructing your career, check out OriGym’s other articles below:

• How Long Does it Take to Become a Yoga Teacher in the UK?
• How Hard is it to Become a Yoga Instructor?
• How to Become a Yin Yoga Teacher: The Ultimate Guide

What You Should Look for in a Yoga Teacher Training Course

If you see ‘YTT hours’ in a job listing, this is yoga teacher training. It directly translates to how many hours have been spent learning the vital skills needed for a yoga instructor job description. 

Most jobs, like the one below, will require you to have completed a course with at least 200 yoga teacher training hours, to guarantee your level of knowledge and expertise.

Both our Level 3 and Level 4 yoga teacher training courses have 400 guided learning hours each, meaning you’ll be provided with as much information and supportive material as possible for all aspects of the yoga instructor job description!

This will give you an edge and will mean you can apply for positions like the one we saw earlier, which asked for over 300 hours of learning hours:

Another one of the most important things you’ll need, for all aspects of the yoga instructor job description, is blended learning.

This is where, as well as learning vital theory and practical skills on a convenient, online platform, you’ll be tested on their application in a real life, classroom setting.

Here at OriGym, all of our yoga courses are taught in this way combining the flexibility of online materials with the ability to practice the skills you’ve acquired. 

You’ll plan and deliver a yoga and meditation session so that you can move seamlessly into applying those skills in a real life situation. 

When you’re choosing a course, you should also make sure it has plenty of post-course support to help you transition from learning skills to applying them to areas of your job description as a yoga instructor. 

Our own course includes the following support: 

• A 1 hour business consultation 
• A business and marketing course
• CV construction and interview preparation if needed

You’ll also get access to our job site where top names in the industry will advertise positions exclusively for OriGym graduates.

All of these things will mean you’re prepared for all aspects of the yoga instructor job description, and your movement from learning to working will be as easy as possible!

You Will Also Need a First Aid Qualification  

As part of your yoga instructor job description, your resume should also include a first aid qualification!

This will help you ensure the safety of your students as, like in any fitness job, there’s risk involved with the physical positions.

Having this qualification would mean you’d be able to deal with any sudden illness or injury in your classes. In more severe cases, this initial basic first aid could potentially save somebody’s life! 

That’s why it’s often something stipulated in a yoga instructor job description like below:

There’s some additional qualifications and checks you might need, depending on where you work, and we’ll touch on these later in our section on ‘who employs yoga teachers?’

Experience Required in a Yoga Instructor Job Description

Now we’ll cover, in a little more detail, the practical experience that will often be stipulated in a job description for a yoga instruction position.

#1 You’ll Need Experience of Teaching Classes

As the majority of your job description when you become a yoga instructor will be teaching classes, a lot of places will ask you to have some experience of doing this already.

A lot of places will ask for experience of:

• Planning yoga classes
• Delivering yoga classes
• Teaching a variety of styles and flows

This is because it’s such a fundamental part of the yoga teacher job description, and you will need to show that you can plan and deliver a class, maintaining engagement throughout. 

A lot of this experience can come from the actual qualification as you’ll have already done 50 hours of teaching in the workshop.

If you want to boost your experience further, you can volunteer whilst you’re starting your career to boost your experience and give yourself the edge when applying for jobs. 

As you can see below, there’s plenty of opportunities available if this is something you’re interested in:

#2 You Should Have Experience of Working in a Team

Wherever you teach, working as part of a team is a vital part of the yoga instructor job description. 

Working in a team will prepare you for managing your schedule in tandem with others, and help to foster your:

• Flexibility
• Interpersonal, soft skills such as friendliness
• Communication skills 

You’ll not only have to work within a team of other yoga instructors but people in different roles including: 

• Personal trainers
• Other fitness professionals
• Administrative and front of house staff 

That’s why it’s something frequently asked for in a job description for a yoga instructor position, like below:

Despite planning and implementing classes alone, which is the majority of the yoga teacher job description, it’s vital for the role that you know how to work in a team.

Hours You Can Expect to Work as a Yoga Teacher

Your hours as a yoga instructor will, more often than not, follow a different pattern to other careers. 

Because most people take part in yoga and fitness classes outside of their own working hours, part of the yoga instructor job description is to work evenings and weekends when clients want to practice.

Wherever, or however, you work, you will usually be asked explicitly to work outside of these standard hours, like in the job description below:

This is something to be aware of for any yoga teacher job description, but hours will differ slightly depending on how you work as an instructor. You can work:

• Freelance
• Full time
• Part time

We’ll look at these in more detail now so that you know what hours to expect for each yoga instructor job description.

Working Freelance as a Yoga Teacher

Essentially, working freelance means being self employed, and so the amount of hours you do and when you do them is technically upto you.

That said, you will need to cater to the demand and schedule of your clients or class attendees, who will most commonly be free of an evening or weekend.

This is why even when working on a freelance basis, you can still expect to work evenings and weekends, at least until you build up a big enough clientbase to fill classes during the 'typical' working day.

Working Hours for an Employed Yoga Instructor Position 

If you work full time as an employee of a yoga studio or facility, you’ll be working between 35-40 hours per week, on a rotational basis, based on the opening hours of the facility. 

This means that part of your job description as a yoga instructor will be working an 8 hour day, but this will typically be a bit different to the usual 9-5 pattern as you'll have to cater to the studios busy periods.

In fact, many positions will state in their yoga instructor job description that the hours are flexible, like this part time position below:

This means that you can shape your own yoga instructor job description to match, as best as possible, your other responsibilities!

How Much Do Yoga Teachers Earn?

Much like the hours you work, how much you earn will depend where you work and in what capacity. 

An average salary is difficult to determine because these figures, posted on job sites, are only based on jobs listed on those sites and salaries declared by people in the industry.

However, even though these figures are limited, they can give you an idea of what you could be earning depending on where you are in your career.  

This figure below, from Indeed, is an average of 106 reported salaries so, though it isn’t split based on where people are in their careers, it still indicates the role’s earning potential!

Looking at a specific yoga instructor job description on job sites, you will see that higher paid salaried positions do often crop up, like below:

Positions like these represent the upper end of what you can earn in a salaried, employed position in a gym or studio.

As with any other industry and career, you’ll steadily increase your income as you develop and gain more industry experience. 

If you’re working freelance, you’ll be paid hourly, which will work out as pay per class. You’ll earn at least £10 per class, but this represents a starting point and most positions will offer more than this.

According to Jobted, the average hourly wage of a yoga instructor is £24:

Again, this is only based on declared salaries and wages. However, it gives you an idea of how much the majority of freelance positions will offer you per hour or per class.

Your pay will often depend on experience here too, and might even differ in the same position based on this, as shown below:

 Part of the yoga instructor job description, especially when you start out, is building a name for yourself and getting as much experience as possible. 

That’s why freelance is a great way to experience the different elements of the job description for a yoga instructor with the option to work in several locations at once.

If you run your own classes, either independently or freelance, and were paid this higher amount of £36, you would only have to do 2 classes per day to earn over £2,000 a month!

 So, as you can see, working freelance, despite having less security than a salaried position, can work out being incredibly profitable. 

Who Employs Yoga Teachers?

We’ll now look in more detail at the variety of different locations you can work in as a yoga instructor.

#1 You can work in a gym as a yoga instructor

The main difference in your job description as a yoga teacher if you’re working in a gym, is that your classes will be aimed more towards a slightly different demographic including:

• Sports people
• Athletes
• Gym goers 

For example, the people attending your class may be attending in order to improve flexibility for their other fitness activities, or to maintain weight loss. Job descriptions, like the one below, will reflect this different focus of classes:

These positions will also usually ask you to teach yoga holistically, rather than a specific style, so this is a great way to build up your clients and career whilst you’re deciding which style to specialise in!

The job description for a yoga teacher in a gym will usually include some other duties, around the facility, as well as teaching the classes themselves as shown below:

As you can see, you might be expected to not only help maintain the particular space where you’re working, but the general areas too.

You also might have to utilise yoga marketing ideas and do sales generation. If this is something stipulated, part of your yoga instructor job description will be to promote and market your own classes to boost attendance levels.

If you’re more interested in a specific type of yoga, or a more spiritual approach, keep reading to find out where else you could work to find this!

#2 You can work in a designated yoga studio as an instructor

One of the biggest differences in the yoga instructor job description for a studio, rather than the gym, is that your expertise will be more streamlined and you’re more likely to specialise in a particular style.

This is because you’ll be working in a studio with a team of other yoga teachers, so your role will entail either teaching one specific style or to be able to teach a variety of different yoga styles. 

Also, depending on the particular studio, it’s more common that the philosophy and principles of yoga are centred and privileged rather than fitness.

This means that part of your job description as a yoga teacher may be to incorporate more spiritual or mindful elements such as more breathing exercises or meditation.

As you can see below, from Eleven Eleven, the philosophy of yoga as a connection to nature is front and centre of their yoga mission statement:

They also offer a huge variety of yoga classes that focus on a holistic approach and a mixture of fitness and spirituality:

Similarly to working in a gym, you’ll be able to work freelance or in a salaried position if you work for a studio. 

#3 You can open your own yoga studio

Another option to be aware of, if you want to work somewhere dedicated solely to yoga, is to open your own yoga studio.

You’ll have a lot of added responsibilities if you open your own studio as well as the elements of the job description in other yoga instructor positions. 

These will include:

• Building a yoga teacher website
• Writing a yoga studio business plan
• Establishing a budget for marketing your yoga business
• Utilising social media skills to build your brand and attract clients
• Hiring staff and growing a team of other instructors to work with

This is something for further along in your career, as part of the job description for a yoga instructor opening their own studio will be experience and the development of a specific niche.

Your niche may well come from a Level 4 course, choosing a specific style, or choosing a particular demographic to work with, like becoming a prenatal yoga teacher!

#4 You can work in some emerging, alternative venues as a yoga instructor

 With more and more people embracing the benefits of yoga, there are a few other places you could work that are becoming increasingly popular options.

A lot of yoga studios now offer corporate yoga where teachers go into businesses and do workshops and classes with the staff of a company.

This is because there’s an increasing awareness of the effects of stress on a range of factors in the workplace including:

• Morale
• Attendance
• Focus
• Attitude towards work

This is why it’s a developing area of the yoga instructor job description, with plenty of people investing in it as a career progression or a focus for their studio.

There’s also several different demographics you could work with including:

• Seniors in a care facility
• Young people in a college or university
• Children in a school

Working with different demographics will often mean you’ll work in a different way, or across different locations, like the job description below:

As you can see, another thing to remember for a yoga instructor job description like this is that you’ll need to have an enhanced DBS check to work with children. 

If you’re working with the elderly, there may be enhanced health and safety concerns, especially in terms of Covid-19.

As shown in this yoga instructor job description, as well as your resume including experience and qualifications, you’ll also need a covid pass:

These are all things to remember if you want to work in one of these developing areas as part of your yoga instructor job description.

Before You Go! 

Hopefully outlining the job description for a yoga teacher has helped you to understand exactly what would be demanded of you, however you choose to work, wherever you choose to teach!

Don’t forget, to become a yoga teacher you should start with a Level 3 Yoga Teaching qualification. At OriGym our training is industry leading, you can learn more about it through downloading our FREE course prospectus.