Where can you earn a lot teaching English abroad?

You’ve probably heard that a Dubai teacher salary is one of the highest for teaching English abroad. And you’d be right. If you’re happy to live in the Middle East and can satisfy the stringent employment criteria, a high Abu Dhabi or Dubai teacher salary could be yours. In these two cities you can certainly earn a lot teaching English abroad. Like in countries like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar, the salary of an English teacher can be $3500-$5500 (tax-free). Along with the higher pay and zero income tax, a Dubai teacher salary is usually complemented by a lucrative package including flights, paid holidays, accommodation and government health care. 

But before you check out the info below listing the countries where the salary of an English teacher is high, hang on a second. Let’s think about a much more important question than where can you earn the most as an English teacher. 

Where can I earn a lot teaching English abroad is the wrong question!

If you really want to earn a lot teaching English abroad, my advice would be, firstly, don’t do TEFL at all. There are plenty of jobs that pay more, and offer far greater job and financial security and a better lifestyle. Teaching English abroad usually involves working across split shifts, unpaid planning and report writing time and most contracts are fixed term with no guarantee of being kept on.

All of that might be fine if you want to travel. But are the high paying jobs in places you actually want to go?

I took one of those high-earner jobs in Qatar circa 2009. I can’t remember the salary now but it was higher than I had earned teaching English abroad before. They paid for my flights, gave me a free flat with another teacher, drove me to classes, and I didn’t have to pay tax. 

I lasted 6 weeks before doing a midnight flit when the school asked for my passport in order to process my tourist visa into a work visa. 

The flat was next to a building site. I couldn’t have the windows open because of the heat, dust and noise. My flatmate had had so many new teachers come and go that she left me a sniffy note when I used some of the washing powder because I hadn’t yet got my own. 

I worked 6 days a week. On my day off there were only a handful of places to go: the souk, a semi-private pool club thing, pricey shopping malls with young men looping the car parks in Lamborghinis, restaurants and western hotels where they served alcohol so every foreigner went. If I walked to the nearest supermarket, I got kerb-crawled by men who probably assumed I was a prostitute.

At least one of the other 5 teachers would go on and on about Jewish conspiracies and how he was a wanted spy. Another teacher had been refused holiday and couldn’t do anything about it because your employer controlled your visa and therefore the right to leave the country. (That may have changed now.)

While the salary of an English teacher in Qatar was higher than other jobs teaching English abroad, everything that went along with the job just wasn’t worth it. So unless you really love the idea of Qatar, or wherever, there’s no reason to be there other than money. 

But if money’s what you want, you could be doing so many other types of career jobs that pay more and you can do anywhere. And there’s another key consideration related to going for the Dubai teacher salary type jobs. 

What are you going to do with your “Dubai teacher salary”?

I’ve met a lot of people who went to countries like Saudi Arabia to work intending to save money for a house deposit or to pay off debts. Most of them ended up there longer than planned because they would spend so much money. They were compensating for the harshness of daily life there with luxury treats and holidays. 

I came across a similar thing, albeit the budget version, when I was on a working holiday visa in Australia. Backpackers would flock to towns to sleep in shared dorms and pick fruit. It was backbreaking work, 6 days a week, up at dawn to get in a couple of hours before the flies descended. I did it for a few weeks, first grape picking then vine-training. The idea most of us had was to write off a few weeks and save the money to continue travelling. But most of them had ended up there months because they spent all their wages drinking and going out to the one or two bars in town to make up for the dullness of the days. 

Just like the backpackers, you don’t want to get stuck. You need a definitive plan for what to do with your money – if money is your main motivation for seeking out a high-paying job teaching English abroad. 

Your saving plan

First you want to save up an emergency fund that will cover you for 3-6 months of essential living costs. When you return home after the high-paying job is over you might find that what was 3 months’ worth now stretches further – or the opposite – so you will want to recalculate. 

An Emergency fund is the bedrock of financial security more so than any other financial venture, even buying a house. If you’re paying a mortgage and end up out of work or ill for a few months, it’s the emergency fund that will keep a roof over your head. 

Next, you want to channel savings towards some kind of interest-earning vehicle. That could be a private pension or a general investing account for the long-term. Or fixed deposits or high-interest savings accounts for the short term. 

The point is that your Dubai teacher salary, or its equivalent, could be working really hard for you, and set you up for the future. Without a plan for the money and what you’re going to do with it, you could be missing a really valuable opportunity. 

The very most basic strategy should be to work out your basic income and expenses and decide on an amount to set aside. Ideally, this figure would automatically leave your current account via a monthly direct debit. That way, you can’t forget or change your mind. So, you’re much more likely to reach your saving target.

Basic money questions to think about whichever country you’re in

• What is the cost of living, and how much could you realistically save per month? 
• Are you eligible for state pension? Are you paying into it at all? If so, how long do you need to stay to be eligible to get that state pension? Can you claim or withdraw your contributions if you leave?
• Are you allowed to invest? For example, someone told me that foreigners were not allowed to invest where he was resident. So you’d have to be able to get your money out of that country and into a foreign broker that accepted you based on your residency.
• Can you save into a private pension and get a tax break for that? If you’re not subject to taxes then this won’t have any benefit. You’d just open a general investing account with a broker instead for as long as you lived there.

Read more about where you can earn the most teaching English abroad 

The list of countries where you can earn a lot teaching English abroad looks something like this, in varying orders depending which source you’re using: 

The Middle East: UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain

The Far East: China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan (I was surprised to see Japan on this list as pay is very low according to this. Look for teaching jobs outside of these schemes and maybe it’s higher?)

For more on salaries and living costs, the posts below offer detailed info. But it’s worth being aware that the sites sell TEFL qualifications and travel services for teachers going abroad. So it pays for them to make the lifestyle and salary package sound attractive. 

• Highest Paying Countries for Teaching English Abroad 
• Top 5 Countries to Make the Most Money Teaching English Abroad
• Teaching English Abroad Salaries: Where can you Make the Most Money?

One thing I recommend is, if you want to check that the information is true, search Facebook groups for English teachers in wherever. There you can ask about salaries, living costs and lifestyle before accepting a job offer. 

Feeling a bit lost about your finances?

A little bit of education is all you need, not a financial advisor. My background in ELT means I know how to teach you this money stuff so you understand it and can put your money to work.