Level Attitude, are you serious about £30K? Damn, that just poured a cold bucket of water over me! If people do invest this much, I cannot imagine how the money is "paid back" over 3-5 years!
So again, on to my questions:
1. What is a "typical work-day" of an FI?
2. Is it possible to do this part-time?
3. What sort of pay can be expected? If £20-25 is "low" (considering the total hours worked per month), what is "decent salary"?
Many repay this by going on into the airlines, though with the likes of Ryanair, airline salaries are going downhill. For your questions:-
"Typical work day" very much depends on the weather, a "dud" day is spent doing a small amount of ground school along with a lot of looking out the windows at the rain! Good weather days will probably be about 5 trips with a briefing/1hr flight/debrief for each one (the pay BTW is normally only for the flying, not briefings, some schools pay a retainer and lower hourly rate so then at least you get
something on dud days). Lessons generally overrun so an hour lunch break dissapears and you end up eating on the hoof!
Part time is certainly possible, schools are busier weekends so need more instructors then, it can be difficult finding a position though as there are a few doing this already.
A decent salary is hard to find and you will need some instructing experience behind you, then you might get a job with a commercial school or a (UK) CFI position that pays OK, not sure of current rates though.
In many ways more a vocation than a career, but great fun.