If you are thinking about how much you could earn by opening an MOT station in your local area, you will need to take into consideration the amount of money you need to invest into the MOT station.
Remember that an MOT tester can only do so many tests per day (around 6 or 8), so in other words, your maximum income for one tester and no repairs will be 6 or 8 times the MOT fee. Do not assume that you will get the maximum amount of MOTs, 6 days a week. In the first few months you won’t get many customers until people get to know about you, so you need to assume that your income will be relatively low at the beginning. For example; if you had 4 a day, that’s approximately £200 a day or £1200 a week based on working from Monday to Saturday. However, £1200 a week, won’t leave much profit after you pay out all those bills and two wages.
Things to take into consideration
The MOT equipment will cost approximately £20k, plus you will have the costs of installing them and making an area in which it will be installed, because there are very strict rules about dimensions and levels that the VOSA will check. You cannot use the MOT ramp for other work, so you will need another ramp if you wanted to expand and do work on vehicles.
If you want to earn a reasonable amount of money, you will not make enough money simply by doing MOT tests and nothing else. You are limited to the number of tests a tester can do per day. So without the income from the repairs, you will find that the MOT income alone will be a struggle to cover the costs of; wages for the testers, wages for you, rent, electric, gas, finance on the ramps etc. It is very unlikely that you would be able to put together a viable business plan based on MOTs alone.
Ideally you will need more than one tester at you MOT station, because if one is off sick or on holiday, you will find that you are unable to do any work, and you would loose money and customers.
The setup costs
Here are most of the costs that you will incur when setting up your own MOT station;
- Deposit on lease/rent (likely to be 3 or even 6 months up front)
- Deposit on lease/rent of MOT
- Costs of preparing premises for an MOT bay
- Costs of preparing drawings/plans for the above and possibly planning permission
- Computer equipment suitable for MOT testing
- Recruitment costs
- Other equipment costs like; compressor, exhaust fume extractor, alarm and tools etc.
- Costs of becoming an MOT station – training/certification
- Initial advertising
- Cash register and facility to accept card payments
- Signage for MOT and the business
- Installing the wiring will be expensive and will require the premises to have a suitably rated supply
Regular weekly or monthly outgoings
This is where you will have an idea of your how much outgoings there is before you make a profit.
- Rent
- Business rates (This, can be costly)
- Lease/rent/finance on MOT equipment or other equipment
- Wages (for you and MOT tester)
- Employer’s contribution to NI/Tax etc
- Electricity
- Gas
- Water rates
- Telephone/internet
- Ongoing advertising
- General office supplies
- Insurance (public liability, employer’s liability, professional indemnity, insurance to be able to drive customer’s cars and general insurance etc)
- Maintenance of equipment/replacement of broken equipment
- Bank charges (including the % taken by card processor)
Average amount per year you could earn
The salary varies depending on several factors. If your MOT station only does MOT testing, you will earn less than if your station does MOT testing and repairs. Remember that you also have to think about the outgoings, and this depends on the location, the lease rates as they vary and as well as other outgoings.
Moreover, your earnings will depend on if you are well known by the public and have a lot of customers, because usually at the beginning, business can be very slow until you become known.
You also need to think about the amount of hours you work, as you can seem to be earning a reasonable amount of money, however when you work out the amount of hours you work, it maybe that you don’t earn as much as you thought.
To sum up, you can expect to earn around £23k per annum or more, but this all depends on the factors above. If your MOT station has a good start you will have the potential to make much more as your reputation grows. Like any other self-employed job, there are no guarantees of success or income and you must think about your outgoings and have a good idea of the work involved before just looking at the pound signs.
Training
It is very important to take into account that MOT training and annual MOT training is required. We offer a range of courses and this will also give you more of an idea, on how you could earn more money. For example, now Hybrid and Electrical Vehicles are not only our present but our future, maybe it is a good time for you to take the training course, as there aren’t many garages that have this qualification at the moment. This is a good opportunity for you to earn more money especially in the long run.
Please see below the courses available;
⦁ MOT Training Course 1 & 2
⦁ MOT Training Course, Class 4 & 7
⦁ MOT Managers Course
⦁ Hybrid Training Course, Level 1
⦁ Hybrid Training Course, Level 2 Light Vehicles
⦁ Hybrid Training Course, Level 2 Buses
⦁ Hybrid Training Course, Level 2 Heavy Goods Vehicles
⦁ Hybrid Training Course Level 3
If you require any more information or need help on deciding which course to choose, you can contact us on 01274 965008 and one of our professional trainers will be more than happy to help you.
