You are here: Home > Make Money > Students making money
Print this page
Students making money
 Get your hands on some cash
Students need to make money now more than ever and, thankfully, there are a lot of ways in which they can do it. We've got ideas for money-earning in the summer holidays and in term time. Just pick the ones that suit you best.
Holiday work
If you fancy what will turn out to be an extended paid trip to the USA, Camp America is your answer. Your food, accommodation and flights are paid for, and you'll be guiding kids through sports and activities for 9 - 12 weeks. And as part of your visa agreement you get a month at the end of the scheme to travel around the USA.
If you're considering a career in teaching, then you should consider the Student Associates Scheme. It's possible to earn £600 tax-free for a three week placement at a primary or secondary school. Placements must be finished by July, there's no age limit and you must be at a higher education institution.
Want to be in a movie with your favourite celebrity? Always thought it would be fun to see your face on the big screen? Acting extras are ordinary people that are essential to setting up scenes in films or television shows. You can earn £65 for 9 hours of work, with a £20 bonus …not to mention the bragging rights if you are in the same shot, even momentarily, with lead actors. The acting website offers loads of information on how to become an acting extra.
Working outdoors
Streetcar employs teams including students to promote their brand on the street, especially in London. You can even ride a bike covered in their advertising around London for £8 an hour, stopping occasionally to promote the brand. The shift times are 10:00am to 4:30pm with occasional extended hours, and they request that you're physically fit, fun, and confident in promoting their brand. To become a team leader on the foot based street teams, you can earn £10 an hour. They ask for a minimum commitment of 25 hours per week which can be spread over a seven day period.
If you like spending time in the sun (and the rain) you can make good money working as a member of a charity street team. Students amongst others are employed to sign people up to donation schemes for charities, like Oxfam or the Red Cross; or simples sales for businesses. Its an inventive way of getting out of the office environment and great if you like speaking to people positively and selling a product you really like. You're paid a flat rate and then commission for the number of people you sign up, and there's the possibility that you'll travel widely through a region so that the public isn't saturated by your product. Travel costs are normally met by the employers. A friend worked for Oxfam for two months over the summer and made upwards of two and half thousand pounds! Have a look at our article on gift fundraising to get a greater feel for what's involved.
If you like chatting to people but you don't feel comfortable asking people for money you can try working for a surveying agency, carrying out public surveys. Companies like Colin Buchanan Consultants pay you a flat rate to interview and ask the public about topics as varied as town planning initiatives, to how they spend their leisure time and where. Pay will range depending on the agency you work for, but with CB consultants you could earn around £90 a day. If market research becomes your thing, try signing up with online agencies such as Sarosresearch, who suggest a typical earning of £30-£50 for 2 hours work. This would involve sharing your views in discussion groups, or participating in surveys.
You could try being a freelance interviewer. NatCen (the National Centre for Social Research) has a national panel of 1100 interviewers, and they're looking to recruit more. They ask for a minimum commitment of 25 hours per week which can be spread over a seven day period. There are four pay scales, and new interviewers in an average week of 17 successful interviews, can expect to make £185. Travel costs are covered. You can work in your local area, and the option of working elsewhere in the UK, they offer interesting research subjects and the flexibility to take or refuse work when you want it. You can even join the stakeholder pension scheme after 3 months.
Term time work
The first and most obvious option is the part-time job. It's a great way of keeping a routine and a reliable source of income.
Bar work is useful because you know it won't clash with your course. But if your social life is as valuable as the money you need to fund it, then prepare to see your evenings and weekends disappear under phrases like "overtime" and "shift swaps". Jobs can be found at the Student's Union, in the back of the classifieds, or down at the JobCentrePlus. Bar jobs are notoriously minimum wage, which stands at £5.52 an hour if you're over the age of 22, and £4.60 if you're between the ages of 18 and 21. Try to be savvy as to where you choose to work. For example if you work in a city centre wine bar, rather than a suburban pub, the tips will be more favourable and will really boost your income! If you have a friend who works in a good bar, ask them to suggest you to work there. Not only will you save on the hassle of looking for a job but you get to work with a friend too.
Restaurant and cafe work can be found quite informally if the restaurant isn't part of a chain or is relatively small. Very often jobs will be advertised in the window. Again, the potential wage is the national minimum wage, but the tipping tendency is stronger.
Never volunteer for anything, unless it pays! During term time stressed PhD students will send round circular emails looking for volunteers for psychological experiments for which there is often good pay; or if you keep an eye out around the faculty buildings there are often paid volunteer requests for scientific experiments. These can range from having your brain scanned, to completing a computer test that has a direct bearing on how much money you'll receive!
If you feel like passing on your received wisdom, then joining a private tutoring agency is a must. Its also extremely flexible and you can fit it in between lectures and studying. Agencies such as UKtutors, Holland Park, or Greater London Tutors, will require CRB checks and a few assessments of your abilities, but tutoring is lucrative work at around £20 an hour.
Institutions are always looking for honest individuals to invigilate their exams: although mostly term time work you can apply for it during the holidays. Higher Education colleges have a formal process for their invigilating jobs so you must apply well in advance. They're normally accessed through an online application, and the pay can range from £8 to £18 an hour. There are agencies who will speed the process of you finding invigilating work, have a look at Agency Central for one that will suit you best.
Informal work
You're probably going to be going to clubs while you're at college so why not make money out of it? If you're really into clubbing, and you have a lot of friends, you could get paid to bring your friends into clubs on quiet nights. It works out at about £10 a head, plus more if you get a table. It's only in London and major cities though. See our article on how to get paid to party for more info on how to do it and which companies are looking for people like you.
On the other hand, you could do the whole thing yourself. That's right, set up your own club night and make serious money. You'll need a lump sum to hire the club, bands, and DJs; and more to promote the night with flyers and posters. It's all dependent on the amount of time and effort you put into creating a buzz about your night, and the draw of the acts you get to perform, but it's possible to make some great returns. If the club is big enough the management might ask you to cover the £1000 bar charge if your punters don't get enough people through the door. Its best to start with a smaller venue that you can fill more easily, then it will look better to those who are there. It will take time for a loyal band of clubbers to regularly come to your night, but if you've picked a niche that nobody else has, and you've promoted it enough, then it will grow to be successful.
See if your University does open days, or introductory weeks for sixth form students. You can be paid with the offer of free food and accommodation, which is great if you need to hang around to study. There may even be pay; some universities pay as much as £10 an hour. Keep an eye out for circular emails from either your faculty, the Admissions tutor, or the University publicity officer, or advertisements around campus.
Members of a band, whether you're a jazz band, a classical quartet, or even a modern pop covers bands, can make themselves a good bit of money by playing functions, weddings and parties. Someone in the band acts as agent, and advertises on the internet, by creating flyers and posters, or by word of mouth. Depending on the size of the band, you can be paid around £200 a time for a performance. Its an informal process, so it depends how driven you are to get work.
Busking involves less organisation than functions, although there's no guarantee on income and it's less safe to lug a double bass around on the bus! Although in law busking isn't officially licensed, certain local councils have passed byelaws dictating where and how you get to play in their district, which can be viewed here. You could earn between £40 and £50 an hour if you're professional and you've found a good pitch, or if you have something a little unusual to offer. Check out our article on busking for the best ideas.
Continuing on a musical theme, have a look at Slice the Pie. If you join their community and rate the unsigned bands that are on the site, you can earn a small rate each time you send back a review. Alternatively, you could always stick your demo on there if you are in a band and get set on the road to a profitable record contract! Get all the info on how it works in our full article here.
Babysitting is the best paid way of spending time with cute kids. Whether it's an informal arrangement for home time during the holidays, or through an agency if you're at university (for which you'll need a CRB check), both can lead to a reliable client list and regular work. If you've been trained in childcare courses you could charge £5-6 a hour, although a lot of people will give a flat rate for the night.
Not only will your Student Union advertise work that is needed, but they'll also need people to work for them. While a lot of this work is voluntary, or chosen by the student vote, there are some positions that will pay. Co-opted positions to run the Union are available to you after you graduate: average salaries run at around £13,000 to £14,000 per annum, for working in and out of term. And you'll also be at the heart of what's being organised in your student community, meaning people will want to talk to you about a multitude of things - a great way to make friends.
Agencies recruit people (known as mystery shoppers) to go into pubs, restaurants and shops and monitor the quality of service, and in return you're paid by claiming whatever you're asked to buy for free (by keeping the receipts and claiming costs). It's not exactly money, but it's a free way of eating and drinking well, and whatever beats the beans on toast diet can't be bad. [more info, look at our article about it for specifics] . Homework (well...working from home)
If you make enough of an effort to stay at home by selling on eBay, you won't have to make any effort in having to go out to earn! Internet selling is the savvy way of making money from stuff you don't really need. You can see if people in your halls want rid of unwanted items, and if they do you can offer to sell for them for a cut in the profit. Old textbooks, sports equipment, or old CDs can all be turned over for more cash. Have a look at our eBay blog for a lifestyle guide to eBay selling.
Should your fingers be feeling fast then consider Teletech. They're an American company that need people with an internet connection to offer customer service and technical support on the phone for them. Full training will be given, and the pay stays above £6 an hour. There's a minimum of 20 hours a week to be worked, and you can work more if you apply for it. Standard shifts are, for example, week days from 4pm - 11pm and weekends 3pm - 11 pm, with 2 days off a week. The application process can be rather drawn out, with aptitude tests and questions to answer, but it is a genuine work from home job that pays for complete time and not just for time you are on the phone, and gives full benefits of being employed - so you don't have to worry about self employed tax issues. It doesn't require joining fees and you don't have to sell a product.
And finally, you can use your imagination to let your entrepreneurial skills run wild. Look for what people are interested in; what they need; or what they use everyday, and then see if those areas are provided for adequately. Maybe you can do what's already there, but cheaper and more efficiently. Have a look at this young American college student and his social experiment that proved that you can sell things to people that are already free.
Quick money-makers for any time
If your friends are in a similarly tricky situation regarding work then you could team together and use this site to help yourselves out. Zubka uses people to find other people for jobs, then gives the 'informant' a hefty fee for providing a successful candidate, normally around £1,500. If you fancy yourself as a bit of a recruitment consultant, sign up for free with Zubka and browse the jobs on offer. If you think any of them would be right for someone you know, you stand to make some serious cash.
You could deliver leaflets and promotional materials door to door. It pays about £5 an hour, and you can solicit the business yourself by asking local businesses whether or not they do it. You could increase your pay by delivering for several companies at the same time, so you walk once, but earn more. Have a look at our page on delivering leaflets for guidance.
How about walking dogs for extra cash? In London you can earn up to £15 a dog, and whether you do it through an agency or 'freelance' it can be very flexible and good for your health! Have a look at our dog walking article to find out more.
And if you're still looking for inspiration, our 7 quick ways to make some cash article should help you out and we always have extra ways to make cash in our regularly updated article, Need a Bit on the Side?.
Useful contacts
Related articles
|
Brian Cantwell
Moneymagpie Moneypedia
09.09.2008
Dinner Set for a Fiver
Get your hands on a white porcelain 12 piece dinner set for just £5 at Argos now.
