Offer of £2 million to tutor architecture student marks a new frontier in competitive advantage.

Welcome to the expanding field of specialized private education for the ultra-wealthy, where tutoring profits, even on a part-time basis, now far exceed traditional salary.

Architects were astonished this week when an Oxford tutor agency offered a salary seven times higher than the average building designer for an “excellent young professional architect to provide academic support and mentorship to an ambitious architecture student preparing to commence her university studies.”

The client does not even require the successful applicant to quit their day job, offering £288,000 a year and nine weeks’ holiday. Responsibilities include helping with coursework and exams and “leveraging connections to secure placements in other prestigious architectural firms.” This arrangement could extend through the full seven years of the student’s architectural training. The benefactor, not a family member, believes the student could be the next Zaha Hadid.

This search is the latest sign of a surge in private tutoring for the children of the ultra-wealthy. Adam Caller, the founder of Tutors International, the 25-year-old firm that posted the advert, told the Guardian, “I am absolutely swamped with inquiries. It’s never been like this.”

This trend also highlights a new frontier in gaining a competitive advantage: hiring tutors to boost professional connections. The case, first reported in the Architects’ Journal, coincides with a rise in private tutoring in the mainstream, with 30% of young people aged 11-16 in England and Wales reporting in 2023 that they have had private tutoring, according to data from the Sutton Trust. The social mobility charity warns that this practice serves “to reinforce the advantages of existing privilege.”

Other job offers currently from Tutors International include:

• An Arabic speaker will be paid $190 per hour to tutor three youngsters aged seven and younger until the end of the summer in houses in Ibiza, the Cotswolds, and Surrey.
• $180,000 a year and a private villa to tutor three children in French, reading, and math in Djibouti.
• $360,000 a year for two tutors to travel with two boys involved in motor sports, equestrian sports, and art at a high level. Prospective teachers are informed that one boy’s “passion for Lego” demonstrates “a keen analytical mind.”

Read More: https://theeducationview.com/