Teaching English in Spain: the routes in, ranked by how well they work

Teaching English is the most reliable way into Spain for a fluent English speaker with no Spanish, and has been for decades. It is also consistently oversold. Here are the routes, in the order they are worth considering, with the parts the recruitment pages leave out.

1. THE GOVERNMENT LANGUAGE ASSISTANT PROGRAMMES

The Ministry of Education's auxiliares de conversación programme places assistants in state schools. Several regions run their own versions, and there is a parallel scheme through Madrid's Catholic school network.

Why it ranks first: for a non-EU citizen it is a legal route in, which almost nothing else on this list is. The timetable is part-time, the stipend is designed to cover living costs, and you get a school and a schedule rather than chasing hours across a city.

The catch: it pays a stipend, not a salary — enough to live on, not enough to save from. Placements are allocated, not chosen, and you may end up somewhere small. Applications open early in the year for an October start, and the process is slow.

Best for: your first year in Spain, especially if you need the visa route.

2. PRIVATE TUITION

Highest pay per hour of anything here, no employer taking a cut, and you set your own schedule.

The catch: it takes months to build, income is irregular, August is dead, and you are running a small business — which means registering as autónomo if you do it properly, with a monthly social security contribution attached.

Best for: a supplement from day one; a main income after a year or two.

3. IN-COMPANY BUSINESS ENGLISH

Teaching adults at their workplace, usually through a training provider. Better paid per hour than academy work and generally more interesting.

The catch: classes are early morning and evening, travel between sites is unpaid, and a cancelled class is often an unpaid one. Look at the hourly rate, then work out the actual day.

Best for: someone with a year of teaching behind them and some patience for logistics.

4. LANGUAGE ACADEMIES

The bulk of the market, and where most people start. Hiring is concentrated in late August and September.

The catch, and it is a significant one: "full-time" typically means 20–25 contact hours, because preparation and travel are unpaid — so calculate the monthly total, not the hourly rate. Many contracts run September to June and end there, which means no income in July and August. Plan for that before you sign, not in May.

Best for: a first stable contract and a work routine.

5. SUMMER CAMPS

Intense, residential, and they hire in volume between February and April. Full board included, which changes the economics considerably.

The catch: long days, pastoral responsibility as much as teaching, and it lasts weeks rather than a year.

Best for: filling the summer gap that route 4 leaves you with.

6. INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS

A different profession, not a step up from the same one. Proper salaries, real career progression, contracts on the academic year.

The requirement: a full teaching qualification from your home system and classroom experience. Recruitment peaks January to April for a September start — much earlier than the academy cycle, and people miss it by a year.

Best for: qualified teachers. Not an entry route.

WHAT YOU ACTUALLY NEED

For academy work: a recognised certificate — CELTA, Trinity CertTESOL, or a full TEFL course. A four-weekend online course is treated as less serious than a hundred-plus-hour one with observed teaching, and schools can tell the difference.

For the visa: non-EU citizens need a degree for most legal routes. An academy will rarely sponsor a work permit — this is the constraint that decides everything else, and the assistant programmes exist partly because of it.

For international schools: a full teaching qualification, and start the qualification recognition process early. It is slow.

THE THING NOBODY PUTS IN THE BROCHURE

Learn Spanish anyway. Not for the first job — for the second one, for a life outside work, and to stop being restricted to the one sector that will take you without it. The state language schools (Escuelas Oficiales de Idiomas) are cheap and good.

The people who are still happily in Spain after five years are, almost without exception, the ones who did that.