I’ve been delivering natural history training courses for roughly 10 years, starting with earthworm ID and surveying, before branching out into earthworm ecology, terrestrial invertebrates, butterflies, moths, iRecord and biological recording.
For 5 years I commissioned other species group specialists for the FSC BioLinks project and I’m once again commissioning those species group specialists for biological recording events through the Biological Recording Company.
Starting my own company has forced me to re-evaluate what I quote for others as I want to ensure my company is ethical and pays natural history tutors a fair wage.
This is a particularly pertinent point considering the rising cost of living within the UK. It’s important that natural history tutor fees rise in line with employee wages. From my experience, the amount paid to natural history tutors varies considerably between organisations, even for the delivery of the same course.
So this brings me to the titular question of this blog: What are our natural history tutors worth?
Natural History Tutor Survey
To answer this question the first thing to do is ask the natural history tutors themselves, so I’m running a short survey and inviting those that teach natural history courses for adults to take part.
Within the survey I’ll be assessing the rate for a 1-day course to standardise responses and asking a couple of questions about the type of courses tutors teach, the subjects they cover and the audiences their courses are aimed at so that I can categorise responses.
The survey will then ask what the minimum and maximum fees are that tutors will accept for their work, as well as what they believe should be the daily rate for course delivery.
So if you teach any of the following, please take 5 minutes to complete this short survey:
- Species identification
- Ecology and conservation
- Surveying and monitoring
- Biodiversity policy and legislation
- Other courses aimed at amateur naturalists or biodiversity professionals
Survey Data
The survey is anonymous and does not ask for your name. Individual responses will not be shared, but a summary of the results will be published via the Biological Recording Company blog.
The summary will detail what natural history tutors believe their daily rate should be and report on variation between categories of course where variation exists. This will be reported alongside the minimum and maximum fees they currently deliver training for so that the sector has evidence of discrepancies and individual organisations can see where they fit on the scale. It is hoped that the results of this survey will help inform policies on natural history tutor fees and budgets within future biodiversity projects.
Survey Results
A summary of the survey results will be added here once the survey is closed and data has been analysed.
Interim results: When asked how much the daily rate should be for Natural History tutors, the mean amount was £284.78 and the median was £300.00 after 47 responses.
More on biological recording
Biological Recording 