The Editor says: As water-based activities continue to grow in popularity, more and more people are making a career change and choosing to become dive instructors. But before you dive in headfirst, have you seriously thought through the pros and cons? Here's some honest insight straight from an instructor. Full article republished from Japon Chen's personal Facebook (PADI IDC STAFF #435608)
Lately I've been asked way too often: Why did you decide to become a dive instructor in the first place?
Is being a dive instructor good money? Is it hard work? Can you meet a lot of girls?
All kinds of questions — it seems like people are pretty curious about what a dive instructor's life is really like.
So today I'm pulling back the curtain. Everything below is based on my personal experience and may not apply to everyone.
Before becoming a dive instructor, I worked as a chef at an American-style restaurant. I took the job because I wanted to learn a practical, marketable skill —
something useful for continuing to travel and work abroad. Food is a universal need, and every country needs cooks.
Then one day, mid-chop, it hit me: I felt like I'd been stuck indoors forever, slowly suffocating.
Don't get me wrong — I genuinely loved cooking and the satisfaction of seeing a customer's face light up after a meal. The sense of accomplishment was off the charts!
Article author Japon Chen
But I still felt like something needed to change.
Around that time I had just picked up scuba diving and was curious about the industry, so I did some research online.
That's when I realised this could be another way to keep travelling while earning a living.
So I went back to the place where I did my Open Water course — the same company I now work for: Taiwan Dive Center.
I started out as a helper, cleaning toilets and making beds.
I worked my way up through a work-for-certification arrangement, eventually reaching Rescue Diver, and was just about to enter the semi-professional Divemaster stage
when a senior instructor sat me down and told me straight: you need to really think this through. Diving for yourself and taking people diving are two completely different things.
Because you're responsible for people's lives — and this is not a job that will make you rich.
A senior instructor warned me: you absolutely must think carefully about this. Diving for yourself and taking others diving are two completely different things, because you are responsible for people's lives. And this is not a job that will make you rich.
After looking at what most instructors actually earn, and what it costs to get certified as one,
no matter how I ran the numbers, the return on investment looked terrible. I was seriously wavering.
Just going from entry-level diver to instructor costs roughly NT$200,000.
Then add buying your own gear, ongoing continuing education, and equipment servicing —
(wetsuits, for instance, realistically need replacing every one to two years)
— and on top of all that, every year you have to hand PADI what basically amounts to protection money: close to NT$10,000!
All of these factors are enough to make anyone think twice.
So Why Did I Ultimately Decide to Go for It?
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I was already halfway in — might as well go all the way.
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Introducing people to the mountains and the sea has always been one of my favourite things to do. I'm a born enabler.
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I love the weightless feeling underwater and the endlessly changing world beneath the surface.
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I love the slow pace of life in Kenting, and I still wanted to travel and work abroad.
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Come on — being a waterman is just cool.
Life needs a little spontaneity, right? XD
5 Pieces of Advice for Anyone Thinking About Becoming a Dive Instructor
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You have to genuinely love diving. If you treat being a dive instructor as just another job, you lose the best part of what makes this career worth it.
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You need to have some savings — the more the better. Many dive shops may offer work-for-certification arrangements, but the pay is minimal, so you'll need a financial buffer to avoid real hardship. How much? Personally, I'd say a minimum of NT$200,000, because getting certified as an instructor alone will cost roughly that much. And that's before you invest in gear — diving is a bottomless pit.
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You need to be physically tough and resilient. There are a lot of scuba tanks to lug around — this is an extremely labour-intensive job. On the main island of Taiwan during peak season, four dives a day is the norm; on the outlying islands, four is just the baseline. I've heard of people doing ten dives in a single day, and honestly, I still can't wrap my head around that.
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You need sharp situational awareness. When you're diving for yourself, you only have to look after yourself. Teaching and guiding others is an entirely different matter. You are responsible for the people in your care — even if they're all certified divers, even very experienced ones. Technically, a certified diver should be capable of looking after their own safety, but you never truly know whether they actually can. One golden rule: never let a student disappear from your sight.
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Stay humble and keep learning. Passing the instructor exam and actually knowing how to teach and lead dives are completely different things. Seek out mentors, study how experienced instructors teach, then adapt what you learn into a workflow that feels natural to you. Finding your own teaching style takes time — often a lot of it.
Thinking About Becoming a Dive Instructor? 2 Common Questions
Advantages of Being a Dive Instructor:
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You get to dive all the time. When you're not with students, you can explore new dive sites and routes you'd never otherwise discover.
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You easily meet people from all over the world and from all walks of life. Every dive shop attracts a different clientele. To put it simply: budget dive shops tend to draw a rougher crowd; mid-to-high-end shops attract guests with a higher socioeconomic profile. Just as divers choose their dive shops, a shop's positioning determines what kind of guests it draws.
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This skill can take you abroad — Australia, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Okinawa, Saipan, Palau, the Maldives. If you're someone who loves living by the coast, away from the city, this can be an incredible life experience.
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Life tends to be more relaxed. Compared to city living, it feels more like actually living rather than just surviving.
If anyone thinks of other advantages, feel free to add them in the comments! Now for the other side of the coin:
Disadvantages of Being a Dive Instructor:
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The diving hobby hole is deep. Gear costs thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. Continuing education to improve your teaching is constantly needed — and those courses easily run into the tens of thousands of NT dollars. It's easy to spend more than you earn.
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You're at the mercy of the weather. Just when a long weekend rolls around and it's time to make money, a typhoon or a strong cold front can wipe out one or two weeks of business.
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You can't afford to get sick, and you have to take extremely good care of your body. Being a dive instructor is essentially a no-work, no-pay gig — there's rarely a fixed monthly salary. How much you earn depends entirely on how many dives you do and what type of course or dive you're leading.
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You see so many people in bikinis that eventually it stops being exciting, and life loses one of its simple pleasures. (This particular disadvantage was actually pointed out to me by a student. XD)
Dive Instructor Q&A
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Do dive instructors make a lot of money? Annual earnings average around US$20,000 or so. Strangely, I assumed that working as an instructor abroad would pay significantly more, but after asking around, the number is roughly the same. Is that a lot? Let me finish my instant noodles and get back to you.
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Do you have a lot of romantic adventures? Is your personal life wild? Honestly, I don't think that has much to do with the profession. If you're attractive, fun, financially comfortable, and funny — it doesn't matter what you do for a living, opportunities will come your way. And personal life really just depends on the individual. That's precisely why you see all those complaint groups online — "rants about dive instructors," "rants about pilots," "rants about flight attendants," "rants about waitstaff," "rants about civil servants," "rants about engineers," "rants about teachers." Wanting to play the field is a personal choice, not an occupational one. Choose your company wisely and keep your eyes open. XD
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Is drinking a required skill? At our dive shop, quite a few instructors don't drink at all — but they're all great drivers and genuinely thoughtful people.
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Diving by day, cave diving by night? We generally don't go into confined spaces at night. According to PADI standards, during night diving we avoid entering areas where immediate ascent is not possible, ensuring that everyone dives under the highest principle: get home safely and dive happily.
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Are dive instructors always happy? Absolutely — otherwise, why would so many people walk away from six-figure salaries to do this job?
That's a wrap for this article. Hopefully it answers some of the questions you've had about pursuing an instructor certification. If not, come diving with us sometime and we can talk more then.
Cover photo: Photo by Sebastian Pena Lambarri on Unsplash
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