Life coach

As a life coach, you'll help clients identify their personal strengths, as well as areas for development. In a similar way to a counsellor, you'll develop ongoing, confidential, one-to-one relationships with people, helping them to gain new insights. Where counselling focuses on deep emotional healing, your concern is in helping clients plan positive goals.

Life coaches offer a number of services to all kinds of people, such as helping to reduce fears, supporting wellness, improving communication skills, encouraging a better work-life balance, improving relationships, and more.

As well as dealing with individuals, you may also be delivering personal development workshops for small or large groups. It's crucial that you're able to identify when someone may need to be referred for alternative support.

Life coaching isn't a regulated service, but clients expect you to be accredited by a professional body to reflect your training and ethical practice

Types of life coaching

You'll usually specialise in one area of coaching, such as:

• career coaching
• executive business
• group coaching
• health and wellbeing, which may include sobriety coaching
• performance management
• personal development
• relationships, including dating and family life
• retirement
• spirituality
• sports
• finances
• youth coaching.

For some areas of coaching, such as executive business, companies or individuals may want you to have a background in HR and training or business. It's important to research each discipline so you have a clear understanding of what's expected of you.

Responsibilities

As a life coach, you'll need to:

• agree a coaching contract for a number of sessions, discuss confidentiality, and work to a Code of Ethics, which dictates overall conduct and professional standards
• build good working relationships with clients, allowing them to communicate their values and beliefs in an open and honest environment
• motivate and encourage clients throughout the change process
• use coaching skills to help develop your client's self-awareness
• be aware of self-help techniques, such as mindfulness, and how this can help clients to manage stress and increase productivity
• help clients gain a clearer understanding of their beliefs and how they impact their feelings
• work with clients to develop strategies for reaching their goals, continually reviewing progress
• have a clear understanding of coaching frameworks and theories of positive psychology, applying them in practice
• work safely as a reflective practitioner to develop greater self-awareness when working with clients.

Salary

• You'll likely be self-employed, and as a private practitioner, you could charge in the region of £40 to £60 per hour.
• Salaries vary widely, depending on your experience, skills and discipline.
• Coaches with more than ten years of experience, particularly those specialising in executive coaching, charge higher rates. This could be in the region of £120 per session.

Life coaching is typically carried out on a part-time basis, so it's likely you'll need additional work to supplement your income.

However, it may be possible to get a full-time contract with an employer to offer career coaching or personal development within their company. This will provide you with a more secure salary.

Income figures are intended as a guide only.

Working hours

As you'll probably be self-employed, you'll be able to set your own working hours. You may be expected to work unsociable hours to meet client needs, including evenings and weekends.

It's important to recognise that any form of intensive coaching can be emotionally demanding. Your professional body may recommend a maximum number of hours of client contact per week.

Many life coaches work part-time to complement other similar work, such as counselling or careers consultancy. You'll need to invest time in building your reputation, as well as network with agencies, employers, and potential clients. As such, you may need to factor extra time into your working week, as well as allowing for professional development activities and supervision.

What to expect

• If working for an employer, you'll have an office, but you may travel to other locations to meet with clients. If self-employed, you may choose to work from home or rent an appropriate space. You might also travel to networking events or for training.
• You'll need to have an understanding of being self-employed, such as having a business plan and registering with HMRC.
• As well as conducting face-to-face sessions, you might also carry out coaching over the phone or online.
• The job can be emotionally challenging, especially with clients who may be resistant to change. In these cases, you'll need to tailor your approach to better suit their needs.
• Professional supervision is essential to ensure you're working ethically, but also for personal development. Group supervision is commonplace so that best practices can be shared.

Qualifications

As life coaching isn't a regulated profession, you don't need to have formal qualifications, such as a degree or an HND. However, you may still wish to consider specific training with providers accredited by coaching associations, such as:

• Association for Coaching (AC)
• British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP)
• European Mentoring and Coaching Council UK (EMCC UK)
• International Coach Federation (ICF)

By being accredited, clients will know you're trained to a certain standard. To become certified, you'll need to attend a course that has contact hours with your tutor, rather than completing online training. Entry requirements may differ depending on which provider you use.

Once you've finished your training, you'll need to record additional coaching hours in order to finalise your relevant accreditation. These can range from 60 to 75 hours of coaching practice, but some certificates may require you to do over 100 hours.

Most life coaches choose the profession as a second career, and come to the role with previous experience or educational knowledge in a range of backgrounds and topics, including:

• business
• counselling
• human resources (HR)
• psychology
• social care.

A degree in any of these areas may be helpful, though life and professional experience are more important.

Many organisations affiliated with the NHS or Employee Assistance Programmes (EAP) who employ life coaches will require you to have a counselling diploma accredited by a body, such as BACP or the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP).

Skills

You'll need to have:

• excellent listening and observational skills, with highly developed communication competency and the ability to demonstrate empathy and sensitivity towards others
• the ability to build a productive working relationship with your client in a short space of time
• a non-judgemental attitude and the ability to connect with people from diverse backgrounds
• capabilities in motivating and inspiring your clients
• the confidence to challenge clients in an empathic way
• extensive knowledge of the theory that underpins your work that's linked to personal growth
• an understanding of your own beliefs that may influence your responses
• knowledge of confidentiality and the ability to work within appropriate boundaries
• excellent organisational skills to manage clients and paperwork
• entrepreneurial skills for setting up and running your life coaching career as a business
• basic skills in planning a marketing campaign, with an understanding of online advertising and websites, as well as social media channels
• the ability to network in order to widen your client base and gain contacts within the coaching industry.

You'll also need an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) certificate if your clients are under the age of 18 or are vulnerable adults.

Work experience

Relevant work experience in a supporting role with a range of people is helpful. There are opportunities to find experiences within the charity sector in a variety of settings, including community centres, care homes, and even prisons. Some schools and universities will also accept trainee life coaches.

Voluntary work can help towards gaining a place on a course accredited by a recognised coaching body. You'll also need to find similar opportunities to complete the necessary training hours that will be part of your life coaching career path.

Find out more about the different kinds of work experience and internships that are available.

Employers

Most life coaches are self-employed, although many incorporate their coaching skills into an existing role.

Once you've gained experience, it will be possible to set up your own business. If you do this, you'll need a website and will need to promote your services through various channels, including social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you become a member of a recognised coaching body, you could advertise with online directories such as Life Coach Directory and Life Coach Listings. This is a great way to promote your services and develop a client base. It can also open up opportunities, as you can work both nationally and internationally via video calling or over the phone.

It's possible to find work within the NHS or in Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs) where coaching is offered internally to staff. To get a job this way, you'll need substantial experience along with a relevant accredited coaching qualification.

Opportunities are growing for life coaches to work in a range of community projects, including prisons, with organisations such as Coaching Inside and Out (CIAO), schools, the charity sector, health and wellbeing, and professional support services.

Higher education institutions are also using life coaches to support students through university and for career planning.

These roles are not always advertised widely, so you'll need to be proactive in researching potential opportunities. It's also a good idea to research funding that's available for community projects and approach charities who may be interested in expanding their work into life coaching.

Look for job vacancies and potential research opportunities at

• CharityJob
• Employer Assistance Providers Association (EAPA)
• Jobs.ac.uk
• Third Sector Jobs

Professional development

There isn't a straightforward progression route for life coaches, and personal development is mainly self-directed.

If you decide to become accredited with a professional coaching body, you'll need to meet continuing professional development (CPD) requirements. For example, the Association for Coaching (AC) asks for 30 to 42 hours of CPD, depending on the level you're working at.

You can continue your professional development by taking further study and advancing to the level of Master Coach.

It's important that you undergo a certain number of hours of supervision each year. The exact number varies depending on your professional body. As an example, BACP requires 1.5 hours of supervision each month, while AC expects one hour of supervision for every 15 hours of life coaching you do.

If you're a member of a professional body, you'll get regular updates on workshops and master classes that link to your CPD. Professional bodies also run relevant conferences, allowing you to stay up-to-date with developments in the sector and providing you with networking opportunities. In addition, AC provides a recommended reading list to help with your CPD.

Career prospects

If you move into executive, health, or career coaching, there may be opportunities to find work within different organisations which specialise in these areas, as well as the chance to advance into management roles.

With experience, you can begin to run workshops and take on extra responsibilities by offering supervision to other life coaches.

As you build your reputation with your own clients, you'll be able to expand and build your brand by posting video logs (vlogs), writing blogs, books, magazines or newspaper articles, or contributing to radio and television segments. By doing so, you can build your client base and will be able to charge higher fees.