Become a Tutor

Tutor Jobs — Tokyo & Online

Teach international school students, on your schedule

Tutor Japan has supported international-school families in Tokyo since 2007 — and our client base is growing. We are always hiring tutors who teach in English, online or in person.

Apply Now — takes about 5 minutes

Why tutor with us

• Transparent pay. Most assignments pay ¥2,000–3,500 per hour, depending on the subject and level, with higher rates for specialist exam subjects. Hold an official teaching license? Rates are flexible — there's a field for it in the application.
• Choose your students and hours. Tutors pick the assignments that fit around university or work — there is no minimum schedule.
• Teach in English, online or in person. In-person lessons are mainly in central Tokyo; online lessons can be taught from anywhere (including from the UK).
• Motivated students, meaningful work. Our students attend international schools (Kindergarten to Grade 12) and study curricula like IB, the British curriculum and AP — great experience for a future in education, and a strong line on any CV.
• You teach — we handle the admin. Matching, billing and payments run through our TutorCruncher platform, with a bilingual office team in Azabu behind you. For your own lessons, you coordinate schedules directly with your families — we trust our tutors to manage the teaching relationship.
• Join a community of ~200 tutors, many of them international-school alumni themselves.

What you gain beyond the pay

For students — and for parents helping their child find a first job — tutoring with us is designed to be a growth experience, not just income:

• Independence, early. You take control of your own schedule and learn to balance work and studies from an early stage — skills most people first face years later.
• The best way to master a subject is to teach it. Explaining IB Math to a younger student deepens your own exam mastery — researchers call it the protégé effect. Tutoring isn't time away from your studies; it reinforces them.
• Real client communication. You'll deal with parents as a professional. Not confident in your Japanese? We strongly suggest using AI translation and review — using those tools well is itself a modern work skill.
• Your first taste of freelancing. Managing your own schedule, professional communication, lesson reports, payments through a platform — the working style much of your generation will live in, learned early with a support team behind you.
• A story for your university applications. Real responsibility, real clients, and measurable impact on a child's progress — exactly the material personal statements and admissions interviews ask for.
• Recommendation letters for top performers. If you choose to put this experience on your CV, our top performers can ask us for a recommendation letter — or a direct recommendation for your next job.
• A true entry-level position. We don't ask for job history — we look at your educational background, your passion for teaching, and your professionalism. A perfect first job, especially for international students.

Already at university?

• Roughly double a typical student job. Café and convenience-store work pays around minimum wage; tutoring pays ¥2,000–3,500 per hour. The same monthly income in half the hours — the difference goes to your degree, your club, or your job hunt.
• Your degree is the product. No service-industry scripts — the subjects you're studying are exactly what families pay for. For international and exchange students, your English is finally the qualification instead of the barrier.
• Ready-made 就活 material. 「学生時代に力を入れたこと」— answered with real client responsibility and a child's measurable progress. Works just as well for graduate-school and TA applications.

Who we're looking for

• Most of our tutors are current university students or recent graduates — and we also welcome applications from high-school students at international schools aged 17 or over (guardian consent required while you are under 18).
• Many have attended international schools themselves, so they know curricula such as IB, A-Levels, and SAT first-hand.
• This is not a requirement — but it is an additional point that makes you stand out.

Requirements

To apply as a tutor, we require the following:

• 17 years of age or older — applicants under 18 need written guardian consent and proof of age before starting, and lessons are scheduled to end by 10 pm
• Native level English speaker with excellent communication skills
• Residing in Japan with a work permit/student visa*
• Be flexible and adapt tutoring style to different students’ needs
• Friendly and patient personality when working with students of various ages
• Expert knowledge in your chosen subjects**, for example prior high school subject experience with outstanding grades or current university major, preferably with curriculum experience (e.g. offering to tutor IB Math you should have experience in taking IB Math as a student too)
• Be passionate about tutoring and working with students from different age groups

A few things worth knowing before you apply.

• As we work with many Japanese families, it helps if you can speak or write some Japanese to communicate with the students’ parents too.
• * For tutors residing outside of Japan — for example, the UK —  we require a Japanese bank account, PayPal, or Stripe account.
• ** Popular subjects are English, Math, and Sciences, plus test preparation (TOEFL, IELTS, SAT, A-Levels, (i)GCSE, etc.); popular curricula are IB, British curriculum, and AP.
• If you live in Japan on a dependent visa（家族滞在） — common for international-school students — you need permission to work（資格外活動許可） from immigration before starting. We'll confirm this during onboarding.

Our professional standards

Our tutors represent Tutor Japan — often in a family's own home. So alongside excellent grades and educational background, we look for people who are polite, reliable and professional. In practice, that means:

• Reliability is non-negotiable. We do not tolerate tardiness or cancelling without prior notice (except, of course, in a genuine emergency) — families plan their week around your lesson.
• Keep a calendar. Use a calendar app (or a paper one — your choice) to track your lesson schedule so nothing is forgotten or double-booked.
• Stay reachable. We communicate with our tutors by Slack and email — please check both regularly.
• Report after every lesson. All our tutors send a short lesson report after each session — it's how parents see the progress they're paying for.
• You won't be thrown in cold. Once accepted, you'll have an onboarding session where we walk through these protocols and every tool in detail.