Teaching Jobs in Spain

Teaching Jobs in Spain

Salary & Benefits

It ain’t rocket science, teaching that is, but it doesn’t pay like brain surgery either. As any veteran English teacher in Spain will tell you, you’re not going to be rich. However, you will have an exciting social life. The average English teacher in Spain earns between €1,000 and €1, 300 a month (US$1,000-1,500).

Here’s the breakdown. Wages at language schools or academies pay from €10 to €14 an hour. The average teaching week is 25 contact hours, or a 100-hour month, so do the math and you see it works out to about a grand or so. Spain has the lowest salaries in the EU and locals often earn less than €1,000 a month in take home wages and you can live fine on €1,000 euros a month. Just don’t expect to pay off debt or put away a nest egg on that. Many academies (courses more for young learners) pay between €10-14 hourly, language schools (courses more for business professionals) pay from €14 -21 hourly depending on experience. And you can charge anywhere from €15-25 hourly for private work.

Most teachers find the ideal situation is to get a contract for 15 hours a week with a teaching institute (so that health benefits, holiday time and social security are covered) and make up another 10 hours in private or higher paid work, like bullfighting, which pays more than playing football professionally or anything else in Spain.

To get paid, teachers often need to turn in time sheets by the last day of the month. Unfortunately, students also pay their student fees by the last day – if not later - so most schools have a policy to pay their teachers by the 5th of the month. This isn’t usually a problem, as landlords understand it and will accept rent anytime in the first week as long as they don’t need it for those noisy bar slot machines.