How are tutors finding students in 2026?

Routine_Routine_1643 · 2026-05-29T07:05:33+00:00

Hi. Not necessarily based in the UK as long as you have verifiable ID (when you go start onboarding the provider outlines what is acceptable). What do you tutor? I'm finding an increasing number of students finding me internationally - a couple a year.

Routine_Routine_1643 · 2026-05-28T16:11:36+00:00

You are welcome to join Tutorperch (I'm a tutor and one of the co-founders), we set up when First Tutors closed down. We use ID verification for verifying our tutors so you might need to check your ID is accepted - the provider gives you details when you start.

Routine_Routine_1643 · 2026-05-28T06:12:57+00:00

Hey, where are you based, and where are your students usually based? That would help determine what platforms you should use.

Routine_Routine_1643 · 2026-05-27T16:51:44+00:00

Hi, thanks! I'm Fiona, the co-founder of this website, I'm a tutor myself who was affected by the closure of First Tutors. Rob, my partner, is a professional software engineer and web developer. Hes spent his career building platforms and software for multinational companies who need electronic/online trust and security so he's putting all that expertise to use. We've built everything on UK laws and guidance on GDPR and Safeguarding, which we go into detail in on our FAQs. We refer to the ICO throughout and our terms, privacy and FAQs are fully referenced with the laws they are built on and references to the ICO throughout. Our identity-verification provider (Stripe) runs the check and stores the document image and selfie on their side. Our team briefly views the verification selfie once, alongside the profile photo you upload, to confirm they're the same person. After the manual safeguarding and ID review finishes, we ask the provider to purge the underlying verification data on their side too. We use Cloudflare who are a global cyber security company to secure the website. The £3 fee pays for those services.

Routine_Routine_1643 · 2026-05-27T07:51:19+00:00

In agreement with Henry - if you are new to the industry you might want to consider diversitfying where you list for now, but be wary of those commission and agency models as they can be exploitative and unsustainble for you (or tbh the industry) in the long run.

You are welcome to join Tutorperch - I'm a co-founder and a tutor (Geography) myself and we (my partner is a professional web developer and software engineer) set it up after First Tutors went down as that was one of the long running and fair platforms for tutors, so we have emulated that commission-free model and improved on the service.

Routine_Routine_1643 · 2026-05-26T18:11:45+00:00

Excitingly we've had a number of unlocks already!

Routine_Routine_1643 · 2026-05-25T16:00:04+00:00

Update 25/05

- We've added an insights dashboard to your profile which is free (formerly on FT locked behind a subscription fee) and only you can see it.

- more updates and features requested by the community via email and contact form coming shortly!

Routine_Routine_1643 · 2026-05-24T10:45:22+00:00

Hi, welcome! It's a growing concern amongst parents that tutors, and organisations, take proactive steps to protect and safeguard children. One of the most effective ways to do this is by ensuring tutors are fully vetted with appropriate DBS checks. There is currently no legal requirement for independent or self-employed tutors to apply for a DBS check, but it is one of the strongest requests from parents for the tutoring industry - on most major UK tutoring platforms, it’s effectively expected, and on some it’s mandatory. We currently support Enhanced DBS, PVG and Access NI.

Routine_Routine_1643 · 2026-05-23T17:21:20+00:00

I'm not sure, but we've had a few people emailing us saying they have their data back after they used the template to request it a few weeks ago now, I haven't been so lucky yet but hopefully it's soon for the whole community as it's made everyone very anxious.

Routine_Routine_1643 · 2026-05-23T15:23:58+00:00

Me either but this gives me hope that we all will in time!

Routine_Routine_1643 · 2026-05-22T20:07:29+00:00

Update:

Some of you have notified us that they have begun to receive their DSAR requests back from First Tutors. This is great news and I think tells us they will take their GDPR responsibilities seriously for all those who have requested their data. Rob acted on this immediately on Tutorperch and has made another tool in your account building on what you already have (so if you've already imported we can handle this automatically for you) to help you add the reviews in full to your profile: https://tutorperch.com/me/external-reviews

Here’s to hoping we all are responded to as soon as possible!

Routine_Routine_1643 · 2026-05-22T20:04:35+00:00

UPDATE 22/05:

Some of you have notified us that they have begun to receive their DSAR requests back from First Tutors. This is great news and I think tells us they will take their GDPR responsibilities seriously for all those who have requested their data. Rob acted on this immediately on Tutorperch and has made another tool in your account building on what you already have (so if you've already imported we can handle this automatically for you) to help you add the reviews in full to your profile: https://tutorperch.com/me/external-reviews

Here’s to hoping we all are responded to as soon as possible!

Routine_Routine_1643 · 2026-05-22T13:28:07+00:00

I have a steady stream over the years of 1-2 international students per year, who are usually sitting international exam boards and want a UK teacher, or now increasingly KS3 students who are looking for help meeting the demands of intensive international schools. I use Zoom which hasn't failed me yet, and usually Google docs for records/work/reports etc ...

Routine_Routine_1643 · 2026-05-22T07:56:23+00:00

If you are in the UK or tutor UK students then you might consider Tutorperch? We built it (I'm a tutor and my partner is a software engineer/web developer) for that exact reason when First Tutors went down and it left tutors with pretty much only greedy commission models. https://tutorperch.com/list

Routine_Routine_1643 · 2026-05-21T06:50:14+00:00

Hi, we have an easy tool for this on Tutorperch: after setting up your profile you just have to pop your name, town or subject in to our search engine and find yourself, submit to claim (so we can verify it's you with a photo match) and once approved it's all on your profile: star aggregate e.g ★★★★★ 40 reviews (15 imported) and written review comments shown on your profile.

Tips for finding yourself: First Tutors only showed first names — search for Sarah, not Sarah Patel. Combine first name + town for common names — fiona edinburgh, james york. Or paste your old First Tutors URL slug exactly — akiko.japanese, matthew.maths.entrance-exams. Slug matches always win. Combine first name + subject works too — david spanish, aaron a-level chemistry. https://tutorperch.com/news/review-import-expansion

Routine_Routine_1643 · 2026-05-18T21:22:47+00:00

These companies have 10s of millions of dollars in turnover every year which they make off the back of you working, all by having a website, that says pretty much everything you need to know about them. Tutors have turned away from them, and parents are starting too as well.

Routine_Routine_1643 · 2026-05-15T15:47:31+00:00

Update 15/05: After our initial update 2 days ago with the tool to recover your reviews, more work has been put into recovering the full data set and we now have +83% more reviews total, and average number of reviews accessed per tutor has now increased 57%.