Tourist guides show visitors around places of interest like cities, historic buildings and art galleries.
£18,000 Starter
to£30,000 Experienced
28 to 30 seasonal
freelance / self-employed flexibly
You can get into this job through:
You could do an intermediate or advanced apprenticeship in cultural heritage operations before applying to become a tour guide.
You'll usually need:
You can do 3 levels of training to get a tour guide badge:
You can apply to local tourist guide associations for training, or major tourist attractions that run their own schemes.
Guide London offers blue badge training, which usually takes around 18 months, and some heritage organisations, like York Minster, have their own training courses.
An outgoing and friendly personality, plus being able to speak a second or third language, will give you an advantage when applying for jobs. Experience of dealing with the public and giving presentations will also help.
You can find out more about becoming a guide from the Institute of Tourist Guiding.
You'll need:
Your day-to-day tasks may include:
You could work at monuments and castles, in a museum or at an art gallery.
Your working environment may be outdoors some of the time and you'll travel often.
With experience you could work for a tour operator as a regional tour supervisor or manager.
We can't find any apprenticeship vacancies in England for a tourist guide right now.
The Find an apprenticeship service can help you with your search, send alerts when new apprenticeships become available and has advice on how to apply.
The Find a job service can help you with your search for jobs and send alerts when new jobs become available.
Take an assessment to learn more about your skills and the careers that might suit you.
Call 0800 100 900 or use webchat
8am to 10pm, 7 days a week
More ways to contact us