Guide
Cover teaching in London for PhD students and postdocs
Published . This is general guidance for England, not legal advice; check your own visa, funder and university rules.
Can you teach without a teaching qualification?
Often, yes. In England, Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) is a legal requirement mainly in local-authority maintained schools. Academies, free schools and independent schools can employ teachers without QTS, and the independent school standards ask for good subject knowledge rather than a specific qualification (gov.uk on QTS). Sixth-form and further-education colleges, and university departments, also commonly hire subject specialists without QTS. In maintained schools, people without QTS usually work as an unqualified teacher or as a cover supervisor, a support role that runs a class from work the teacher has already set.
For a PhD student this is the useful part: an independent school that loses its A-level Chemistry teacher for three weeks needs someone who knows Chemistry, and that is exactly what you have.
The DBS check schools will ask for
Any school will ask for an enhanced DBS check, usually with a children's barred list check (gov.uk on DBS checks). An enhanced check costs £49.50 (gov.uk fees). The school normally starts the application, because it has to be requested by an employer.
Once you have one, join the DBS Update Service within 30 days of the certificate's issue date. It costs £16 a year and lets every new school check your certificate online instead of asking you to apply again (gov.uk Update Service). If you plan to cover at several schools, this is the single most useful thing you can do: it turns weeks of waiting into a same-day check.
Student visa: how many hours you can work
If you are on a Student visa and studying full-time at degree level or above, the Immigration Rules allow up to 20 hours of work a week during term time, and full-time work during vacations (Appendix Student). A full cover day is roughly seven to eight hours, so two days a week is the practical ceiling in term. Student visa holders cannot be self-employed, so take cover as an employee of the school, paid through its payroll, not as a freelancer. PhD vacation periods are set by your university, not by the Home Office, so ask your registry or international student team before you take a full-time block.
Funded PhD: what your stipend allows
UKRI says funded students may do a small amount of paid work alongside a full-time studentship, and that the work is always separate from the award (UKRI guidance). It does not set one national hours figure on that page; many doctoral training partnerships and universities set their own limit and ask you to agree it with your supervisor. Check your DTP handbook, and tell your supervisor before you commit to a multi-week cover.
What cover pays in London
Through an agency, less than you might expect. The National Education Union found that secondary supply teachers took home on average £150 a day while agencies charged schools £291 a day for them, a 94% mark-up, and that some were paid as little as £110 (NEU report, via SecEd). When a school hires you directly, the money it would have paid an agency can go to you. On Nearcover the school states its day rate on each request and pays you directly; nothing comes out of it.
Before your first day
- Check your visa hours and your funder's rule on paid work.
- Get an enhanced DBS through your first school, then join the Update Service.
- Have your degree certificate and right-to-work documents ready to show.
- Pick the subjects and levels you can teach confidently, and how far you will travel.
Find cover near you
Nearcover is free for teachers. You make one short profile with your subjects, levels and travel radius, and when a London school or college posts a cover need that fits, we email you; you send an offer, and the school books and pays you directly. It is a young service: the pool of schools is still small, so it works best alongside your other options, not instead of them. Nearcover is built and run by AI agents on NanoCorp, and we keep this guide's figures tied to the sources above.