How to Become a Coach in Australia as a Side Hustle

Becoming a Coach in Australia

Most people who ask us about coaching already have a job. Some manage a team and want to get better at the conversations that sit outside the task list. Others have been the person friends and colleagues come to for years and wonder if that could become paid work. A fair number want both, with the idea of running their own practice somewhere down the track.

Three questions come up in nearly every one of those conversations. Will AI make coaching pointless before I have even started? Can I use coaching skills in the role I have now? And can I build this on the side without walking away from a salary?

This article talks through all three with current Australian and international data. It also includes a checklist and a simple way to work out when a side practice is ready to become your main one.

Key takeaways

Discover the difference between AI coaching and person-to-person coaching
Learn how you could join a multi-billion-dollar industry that is growing year on year
The average private coaching hourly fee is $200-$300
73% of coaches in the ICF study said their clients expect them to be credentialed or certified.
5 coaching questions for your next one-on-one
7 steps to setting up a coaching side hustle

Will AI replace coaches?

It’s reasonable to worry about this. You can open a chatbot tonight, type in a problem and get a tidy list of options back in seconds.

What the chatbot gives you is some common advice. A good coach picks up on the things you leave out. They notice you change the subject three times when your business partner comes up, or that the goal you set last month has quietly dropped off the agenda. Then they hold you to what you said you would do, and they are still there next fortnight to ask how it went.

Think of a recipe app and a cooking teacher. The app has every recipe ever written, and it will never get tired of you. The teacher stands next to you, sees that your pan is too hot, and stops you before the garlic burns. People keep paying for the teacher because being watched and corrected by someone who cares about the result is a different experience from reading instructions.

Revenue figures support that. The International Coaching Federation’s 2025 Global Coaching Study, run by PwC, put annual coaching revenue at US$5.34 billion, up 17 per cent since 2023. That growth happened during the same two years that AI tools became part of everyday work. In the same study, 59 per cent of coaches said they expect their revenue to rise over the next year.

A second reason the profession is holding up has to do with who pays. A large share of coaching is now bought by employers for their leaders and teams. An organisation spending money on leadership development wants a named professional it can hold accountable. That is also why 73% of coaches in the ICF study said their clients expect them to be credentialed or certified.

AI will still change the job, and mostly in useful ways.

The admin gets lighter, for a start. Scheduling, session notes and follow-up emails can be drafted in minutes, which matters a great deal when you are fitting clients around a full-time role.

Your clients will also turn up better informed. Many will have asked a chatbot for advice before they book with you, so your value sits in what happens afterwards, when they have to act on it.

The coaches who should worry are the ones offering general life advice in a friendly voice, because a free tool now does a passable version of that. A clear niche and a recognised credential put you in a much safer spot.

Gallup’s 2026 research points in the same direction from the employer side. In its United States data, employees whose managers actively supported and guided their use of AI reported 48 per cent engagement, compared with 30 per cent for those without that support. Access to the technology made little difference until a manager was coaching people through it.

What coaches earn in Australia

Income is where a lot of online advice gets vague or quotes American figures. Here is the Australian picture as plainly as we can put it.

Type of coaching	Typical rate in Australia	Who usually pays
Health, wellness and life coaching (credentialed)	$90 to $180 an hour	The individual client
Independent coaching in an established practice	$200 to $300 a session	The individual client or a small business
Executive and leadership coaching	$250 to $500 or more a session	The employer

These are the ranges we see across the market and among IAP graduates. They are a guide, and your rate will depend on your niche, credential, background and how long you have been practising.

Rates are only part of it, because very few coaches fill a 38-hour week with sessions. The ICF’s 2025 study found the average coach spends around 11.6 hours a week coaching. For someone planning a side hustle, that is encouraging. The typical working pattern in this profession already looks like part-time.

The gap between coaches who earn well and coaches who struggle is rarely about talent in the session. The coaches who do well have usually figured out how to find and keep clients, and they sell a program with a clear outcome instead of one session at a time. We come back to that further down.

Coaching skills for managers and leaders

You do not need to leave your job to get value from learning to coach. For many people, the first payoff shows up at work on a Monday morning.

Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2026 report found that manager engagement fell from 27 per cent to 22 per cent in a single year. For the first time, managers are no more engaged than the people they lead. Gallup has long estimated that managers account for about 70 per cent of the variance in team engagement, so when the manager is flat, the team usually follows.

Part of the problem is that most people are promoted because they were good at the work, then left to work out the people side on their own. Only 44 per cent of managers globally say they have ever received management training.

The encouraging part of the same research is how much difference coaching skills make. Gallup found that managers who went through coaching programs saw up to 22 per cent higher engagement themselves, and their teams saw up to 18 per cent higher engagement.

What coaching looks like in a management role

A GPS and a driving instructor both get you across town. The GPS tells you every turn, and if it drops out, you are lost. The instructor asks what you can see, lets you make the call and steps in only when you are about to hit something. After a few weeks, you no longer need them in the car.

A lot of managing is GPS work. Someone brings a problem, you give the answer, and they come back tomorrow with the next one. Coaching swaps some of those answers for questions so that people build their own judgement. It takes a little longer in the moment and saves a great deal of time over a quarter.

An example. A team member says, “The client keeps changing the brief and I am going to miss the deadline.”

The directing response: “Email them today, lock the scope and copy me in.”
The coaching response: “What have you already tried with them? What would you do if it were your call?”

The first response sorts out this week. With the second, the next time the client moves the goalposts, your team member is more likely to handle it without you.

Five questions to try in your next one-on-one

What is the most useful thing we could talk about today?
What have you tried so far, and what happened?
What would a good result look like by the end of next week?
What is in the way, and which part of that can you influence?
What will you do first, and when would you like me to check in?

Try two and use them this week. Resist the urge to answer your own question when the silence stretches. That pause is usually where the other person does their best thinking.

When to coach and when to direct

Coaching is not the right tool for every moment. If there is a safety issue, a compliance deadline or someone brand new who has never done the task, tell them what to do. Coaching works best when the person has enough experience to have a view and the situation leaves room for them to try it.

Where this can lead

Plenty of people who learn to coach inside a management role stop there and are better leaders for it. Others find they enjoy those conversations more than the rest of the job. They often become the informal coach in their organisation, then an internal coach or mentor, and later take on a few paying clients outside work. That last step is where the side hustle begins.

Coaching as a side hustle while you keep your job

Working a second job is now common in Australia. The Australian Bureau of Statistics counted 1,049,100 people holding more than one job in the June 2026 quarter. That is a record 6.9% of everyone employed and an 11 per cent rise in twelve months. Women are more likely to do it than men, at 7.7 per cent compared with 6.2 per cent.

Coaching suits this pattern better than most second incomes. Sessions run for an hour; they happen online as easily as in person, and you choose the times. Two evenings a week is enough to get started.

Starting part-time is a bit like being on your L plates. You get your hours up with a safety net in place. You find out which clients you enjoy, what you are good at and what people will pay for, all before your mortgage depends on it.

Seven steps to set it up

Read your employment contract. Look for clauses on secondary employment, conflicts of interest and intellectual property. Many contracts simply ask you to tell your employer. If yours is unclear, ask HR in writing. Coaching people outside your industry on your own time is rarely a problem, but it is far better to check now than to explain later.
Get trained. Coaching isn’t regulated in Australia, so anyone can use the title. That makes a recognised qualification more valuable, because it is the quickest way to tell a stranger apart from someone who started calling themselves a coach last week. An ICF-accredited Level 1 program is a strong starting point and can be completed alongside full-time work.
Register an ABN. It is free through the Australian Business Register and most people set up as a sole trader. You will need it to invoice clients properly.
Sort out insurance. Professional indemnity and public liability cover is generally available through a professional association once you hold a qualification. Budget roughly $300 to $600 a year.
Open a separate bank account. Keeping coaching income and expenses apart from your personal money makes tax time far less painful.
Choose who you help. “Life coach” is hard to find and hard to refer. “Coach for first-time managers” or “coach for parents returning to work” gives people something to remember. Your own career is often the best clue. A nurse of fifteen years already understands burnout in health care better than any generalist could.
Find three practice clients. Message twenty people you know. Tell them what you are training in, who you want to work with and that you are offering a small number of sessions at a reduced rate. Ask each client for feedback and, if it went well, a short testimonial.

The tax basics

This is general information only, so talk to an accountant about your own situation.

All side income is declared. There is no minimum amount below which coaching income can be left off your tax return.
It is taxed on top of your salary. Your coaching profit is added to your wage and taxed at your marginal rate. A common habit is to move 20 to 30 per cent of every payment into a separate account so the bill at the end of the year is already covered.
GST starts at $75,000. You only need to register once your business turnover reaches $75,000 in a 12 month period. At three to five clients a week you will be well below that.
Expenses can be claimed. Costs that relate directly to earning your coaching income, such as insurance, software and professional memberships, are generally deductible.

The ATO says plainly that having a side hustle alongside another job is fine. It expects you to report the income and keep records. Always seek professional advice.

Sell a program

One of the easiest ways to make part time coaching sustainable is to stop selling single sessions. A six session program with a defined outcome is easier to explain, easier to price and gives your client enough time to change something.

An example. Six sessions over twelve weeks for new team leaders, priced at $1,080, works out at $180 a session. Three clients on that program at once takes about three hours of sessions a fortnight and brings in $3,240 for the quarter.

From side hustle to your own business

Some people are happy to coach a few clients alongside their career for good. Others want to know when it is safe to make the switch. That decision is much easier with a number in front of you.

Work out your plan

Your plan is to look at how many sessions a week you would need to replace your salary. It takes four steps.

Write down the income you need to replace.
Divide it by the number of weeks you plan to work. Using 46 weeks allows for leave and public holidays.
Divide that by your session rate.
The result is the number of sessions you need each week.

An example. Priya earns $95,000 as an operations manager and charges $200 a session.

$95,000 divided by 46 weeks = $2,065 a week
$2,065 divided by $200 = just over 10 sessions a week

So Priya’s exit number is about 10 or 11 sessions a week. That figure is before tax, and she will also need to cover her own super, insurance and sick days, so a sensible buffer would push it closer to 13.

What changes when coaching becomes the business

The coaching itself stays much the same, but everything around it grows. You become responsible for marketing, bookkeeping, your own super and a steady flow of new clients. Corporate work often becomes more important at this stage because one organisation can book several people at once, and a recognised credential is often expected.

Many coaches also add group programs or workshops at this stage, so income is no longer tied to the number of hours they can personally sit in a session.

How you could become a coach

If you want coaching to become paid work, the first real step is training that clients and employers recognise. IAP’s ICF accredited Certificate of Professional Coaching is a Level 1 program designed to be completed alongside a job. It gives you the coaching frameworks, supervised practice and the training hours that count towards an ICF credential. Our guide to ICF Level 1 explains how the pathway works.

When you are ready to set up, our 8 steps to starting a coaching business in Australia covers niche, pricing and first clients in more detail.

To talk through which option suits your situation, call 1300 915 497 or download the free training guide for course outlines, dates and payment plans.

This article is general information and is not financial, tax or legal advice. Speak to a registered tax agent or accountant about your own circumstances.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a qualification to be a coach in Australia?

No law requires one, because coaching is not a regulated profession in Australia. In practice, a recognised qualification makes it much easier to get insurance, win corporate work and charge a professional rate. In the ICF’s 2025 study, 73 per cent of coaches said their clients expect them to be credentialed or certified.

Can I start coaching while working full time?

Yes. Most people begin with two to five clients a week in the evenings or on a weekend morning. Check your employment contract first, register an ABN and arrange insurance before you take paying clients.

How much tax will I pay on coaching income?

Your coaching income is normally added to your salary and taxed at your marginal rate. Many part-time coaches set aside 20 to 30 per cent of each payment. An accountant can give you an exact figure for your circumstances.

Do I need to charge GST?

Currently, you only need to register for GST once your business turnover reaches $75,000 in a 12-month period. Below that, registration is optional.

Will AI replace life coaches?

It is unlikely. AI handles information and routine tasks well. Clients pay a coach to understand their situation and hold them to what they said they would do. Global coaching revenue grew 17 per cent between 2023 and 2025, while AI tools spread quickly.

Should I use AI in my coaching practice?

It can save a lot of admin time on scheduling, notes and follow-up emails. Be careful with client confidentiality. Do not paste identifiable client details into a public AI tool, and tell clients how you use technology in your practice.

I am a manager. Do I need to become a certified coach to coach my team?

No. You can start using coaching questions in your next one-on-one. Formal training helps if you want to do it well and consistently, or if you would like the option of coaching outside your organisation later.

What type of coaching pays the most?

Executive and leadership coaching generally sits at the top of the range because employers fund it. It also tends to expect a recognised credential and some professional experience in the area you coach.

How long does it take to become a coach?

You can complete an ICF-accredited Level 1 program in a matter of months alongside work. Building a steady client base takes longer, which is one more reason to start part time.

How many clients do I need to coach full time?

Divide the income you need by the weeks you will work, then by your session rate. Someone replacing $95,000 at $200 a session needs a little over 10 sessions a week before tax and business costs.