Scuba Diving Instructor - Scuba Diving Jobs Around the World

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Don Koop, Dive Instructor, Dominica (West Indies)

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Remote Jobs > Working Overseas > Scuba Diving Instructor Jobs Around the World

Becoming a Professional Scuba Diving Instructor

People can find a lot of different ways to earn a living while abroad. Often though, the avenues that are presented to us hold us back from our passions in life.

To travel, explore new cultures, and taste new cuisines, all while working a job that you love is the dream. Today, learn how becoming a scuba diving instructor can offer you just that. Check out some of the places around the world that diving instructors are able to live and work here.

Scuba Instructor Jobs

Before we jump into it, just know that you won’t become wealthy as a stand-alone dive instructor. Being a dive instructor is not about the money, though. It’s about the freedoms that are presented and the doors that are opened. It’s about the lifestyle and the community you are choosing to join. If you decide to go down this path, your life will undoubtedly change in ways that you never expected.

Further, you can take so many different routes once you become a dive professional, that you never know where you’ll end up.

If you’re interested to learn more about the various opportunities available, skip ahead and check out this article: Advanced Scuba Diving Careers.

So what is it like to work as a dive professional? Well, for most, working in the industry means spending your days in the sun, acting as an ambassador for the oceans, and meeting a ton of new people from all over the world.

• Make no mistake, though; the work can be challenging.

• Often times, you work long days, both in the water and out.

Many dive professionals will spend between three and four hours underwater almost every day of the week. While it’s hard to complain about having turtles, reef sharks, and nudibranchs as office mates, it can wear you down a bit.

No worries; you’ll often find yourself sipping a beer in a tropical destination, thinking about what a wonderful life you’re living. Sound Appealing? Read on, my friends.

Photo by Sebastian Pena Lambarri on Unsplash

Scuba Diving Lessons for Beginners

So, where to start? The path starts out with your Open Water Diver Certification.

• Scuba Fundamental: Start Diving the Right Way

• Scuba Confidential: An Insider's Guide to Becoming a Better Diver

Open Water Diver Course

Get started with your Open Water Diver course! Depending on where you’re located in the world, there are two BIG certifying agencies, PADI and SSI. While some people prefer one certification to the other for small reasons, you don’t have to fuss too much before you hit the professional level.

Both agencies are recognized worldwide and will allow you the opportunity to move up the diving ladder. This course will really let you get a feel for diving, and whether or not you think the path to becoming an instructor is for you.

As with most things, diving gets easier, the more you practice. You will no doubt start out with skills you’ll need to work on. Like, really work on. Just know that with the right amount of persistence and motivation, you will overcome them.

You can find Open Water Diver courses all over the world, near just about any body of water, including in Hawaii, Florida, Cancun, Honduras, Jamaica, Montego Bay, Spain, Italy, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia, Bali, Australia’s Gold Coast, and even the Philippines!

Advanced Open Water Diver Course

Next in line is your Advanced Open Water Diver course. This course will increase your depth limits, get you some experience with night diving or wreck diving, and help build on some of your basic underwater skills such as buoyancy and mask removal.

This course is where I really fell in love with diving.

Seeing the bioluminescent phytoplankton light up while kneeling on the ocean floor in the dark was an out of this world experience. Diving to 30 meters and exploring one of Koh Tao’s wrecks was another highlight.

I also became more comfortable and confident while I was underwater, making the whole experience that much better. Once I finished this course, I was hooked.

It never hurts to start out your nomadic life by getting your certification in another country. For example, you can get your Advanced Open Water Certification in Mexico, Cancun, Honduras, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, The Canary Islands of Spain, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Tanzania, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Bali, Nusa Lembongan, the Philippines, and even New Zealand!

Photo by gokhan polat on Unsplash

Rescue Diver Certification

Which brings us to the next step of the journey – your Rescue Diver certification! This one is A LOT of fun. On top of that, the content that you will learn in this course is incredibly important if you plan on becoming a dive professional.

In this course, you will learn:

• how to identify and manage yourself and fellow divers’ stress,

• take charge of an emergency, and

• recover and rescue someone who needs help.

The skills learned here will not only benefit you immediately, but they will stay with you for the rest of your life, both in the water and out.

As part of the course, you will also take the Emergency Oxygen Provider and First Aid courses. If the course is administered correctly, you will feel stressed, anxious, nervous, and so much more. This is done to prepare you for real-world emergencies.

By the end of the course, though, you will be a far more confident diver, who will be ready to handle a crazy amount of stress in emergency scenarios. Anyone who dives with you in the future will be safer than if you hadn’t taken the course.

“I completed my rescue diver course on the Gili Islands near Bali, Indonesia. Lucky for you, there is a Rescue Diver course offered right near there in Kuta, Bali. The nice thing about completing your course in Bali, other than the island’s sheer beauty, is that you will likely see some manta rays during the dives!”

Other amazing locations that would make your jaw drop while advancing your credentials to Rescue Diver: Mexico, Costa Rica, Tenerife - Spain, Gran Canaria - Spain, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bali, Australia, or New Zealand!

Photo by Mael BALLAND on Unsplash

Divemaster Course

After your rescue certification, you are officially ready to take your first course to become a dive professional.

The Divemaster course is epic.

While there isn’t a specific time requirement for completion, many Divemaster courses are set up as internships. These internships are anywhere from three weeks to six months in length.

Keep in mind that you want to do plenty of research on these internships before you begin. You will definitely run into fellow divers who had terrible experiences with them at some point, but don’t let that put you off.

I completed my Divemaster for FREE, with Princess Divers in Koh Phi Phi, Thailand, and it was one of the most incredible experiences of my life.

The internship let me dive every single day while gaining real-world experience with fellow dive professionals and customers.

• Check them out if you’re in southeast Asia.

My experience over four months gave me over 200 dives worth of experience, many of those with paying customers. I felt so prepared to move to another dive shop after that, and I am certainly grateful.

100 Dives of a Lifetime:
The World's Ultimate Underwater Destinations

Scuba Diving Instructor Course

Last, but most certainly not least, is your Scuba Instructor Course.

This is the point where you need to consider which agency to do your training with carefully. As a PADI instructor, you can only teach PADI certifications at PADI schools. You are not allowed to teach SSI material. The same goes the other way around.

By this time, you will undoubtedly have a ton of contacts and relationships in the diving industry, and hopefully, you have some idea of where you want to teach. Reach out to your friends and coworkers and get some advice. Check out your prospective dive shops, and see which agency they affiliate with. Maybe it’s just one; perhaps it’s both. Either way, do yourself a favor and make sure you are choosing the right agency for you.

It can be CRAZY expensive to make a mistake here.

Regardless of which agency you choose, the course is rigorous.

You will spend your days in the classroom learning how to teach the material, and you will spend time in the pool, perfecting the demonstration of your skills.

There will not be much time for fun diving.

After your course, though, you are officially a dive instructor, able to work, and teach immediately.

Congrats to future you!

From this point, you will have plenty of options to keep moving forward, including becoming:

• a master scuba diver trainer,

• staff instructor, and

• course director, just to name a few.

PADI Instructor Course Cost

The “Zero to Professional” program and PADI Divemaster Internships vary in cost based on location and company that you go through. The Instructor Courses themselves are also various and range from about $150 to $2,000 depending on what you type of instruction you will be providing. The primary course – the Instructor Development Course – typically runs around $1,400 - $2,000.

PADI Instructor Course Cost

The standard instructor course is called the Instructor Development Course (IDC) and covers the Assistant Instructor Course, the Open Water Scuba Instructor Course, and the Enriched Air Instructor Course. This allows you to teach each of these courses. It costs $1,400 in Malaysia and includes all of the following in that price:

• Unlimited diving one week prior to the IDC* (subject to availability and space on dive trips)

• Two day Instructor Preparation Course (IDC Prep)

• Twelve day PADI IDC/EFRI program including lunch on all days.

• Duty of Care Workshop

• Business of Diving Workshop.

• PADI Oxygen Provider or Enriched Air Instructor Course including Instructor outlines

• All tanks, weights and belts for the entire IDC

These courses can also be done separately.

Additionally, many other courses are available depending on what you prefer to specialize in or teach - such as:

• Emergency First Response Instructor Course ($430)

• PADI Oxygen Provider Instructor Course ($150)

• PADI Specialty Instructor Course ($200)

• PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer Prep ($700)

• PADI IDC Staff Instructor Course ($700)

• PADI Course Director Training Course Preparation ($700)

• DSAT Technical Tec Diving Program ($1,200)

Prices are different if you plan to do your PADI Instructor Course, the IDC, in Europe or the Americas.

For example, the net cost at IDC-Dive for your IDC course in Dahab, Egypt will run €1,862 - but you can also do a package deal for €2,139 that also gives you the coursework to teach the Emergency First Response Instructor Course as well.

Adding this course to your IDC in Malaysia would increase the cost from $1,400 to $1,830 - not significantly different - and it is worth deciding WHERE you’ll be doing your training and dives and if that matters to you.

The Best Dive Sites Around the World

PADI Instructor Jobs

Check out “Advanced Scuba Diving Careers” [publishing on November 24th, 2020] for more information on a few of the other highly rewarding - and even highly paid - diving careers that are out there!

Share this article with your friends who might want to consider a career in scuba diving as well.

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- Written by Travis Turgeon: Divemaster, Digital Nomad, and Freelance Travel Writer
*edited for content by Eat Wander Explore

Bradley from Eat Wander Explore, Open Water Scuba Lessons in Dominica 2012

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