How to Check if a Tutor Is Actually Qualified

To check whether a tutor is actually qualified, ask for four separate things and do not settle for fewer: proof of who they are, a background check at the right level, evidence of the qualifications they claim, and evidence that they have delivered real results with real students. Each one answers a different question, and a confident-sounding profile that supplies none of them has told you nothing. The reason this is more work than it should be is that private tutoring in the UK is unregulated: anyone can call themselves a tutor, and a profile bio is a piece of writing, not a verified fact. The shortcut, where it exists, is a platform that has already run those four checks and bundled them into one computed credibility score you can read at a glance. On Tutorwise that score is called CaaS, and the rest of this guide explains both the manual checks and how a computed score does the bundling for you.

Why "qualified" is harder to check than it looks

There is no licence to be a private tutor. No governing body signs tutors off, no register lists the approved ones, and no rule stops someone with no teaching experience from advertising themselves alongside a former head of department. That is not a scandal, it is simply the state of the market, and it puts the whole job of checking onto you.

It gets harder because the words on a profile are self-written. "Experienced", "qualified", "DBS-checked" and "examiner" are claims, not evidence, and the reader usually cannot tell a genuine one from an optimistic one. A five-star average makes the problem worse, not better, because it measures how a handful of past clients felt, not whether the person is who they say they are or holds what they say they hold. You can be charming, punctual and popular without ever having taught your subject to exam standard.

So the honest position is this. You are not looking for a warm feeling from a profile. You are looking for four specific pieces of proof, and you should be comfortable asking for all of them before you hand over money or let someone work with your child.

The four things to demand

1. Proof of identity

Start with the most basic question: is this person who they say they are? Identity sits underneath everything else, because a background check or a qualification only means something if it belongs to the actual human sitting across the table or the screen. A tutor who has verified their identity through a document check has cleared the lowest bar. One who has not is asking you to take even their name on trust.

2. A background check at the right level

For anyone working with children, the relevant check is a DBS check, run by the Disclosure and Barring Service. It comes at three levels: Basic, Standard and Enhanced. Only an Enhanced check, and specifically one that includes a check against the children's barred list, is designed for people in regular contact with children. A Basic DBS confirms unspent convictions and nothing more.

Here is the detail most parents miss, and it is the one that matters most. A self-employed private tutor generally cannot apply for their own Enhanced DBS. Eligibility for an Enhanced check normally runs through an organisation that is entitled to request one; an individual working privately, arranged directly with a family, often can only obtain a Basic DBS for themselves. So when a tutor says "I'm DBS-checked", the correct next question is: at what level, and who requested it? A Basic certificate held by someone who described it as a full check is not fraud, but it is not the protection you assumed you had.

Two more things to know. A DBS certificate reflects a person's record on the day it was issued, so an old certificate is a snapshot, not a live status. The DBS Update Service exists precisely so a check can be kept current and re-verified, which is worth far more than a printout from three years ago. And a background check tells you about safety, not ability. It is necessary, it is not sufficient, and it is only one of your four.

3. The qualifications they actually claim

Now the qualifications themselves. Be precise about what you are checking, because "qualified" means different things to different people. Qualified Teacher Status is the standard for teaching in a state school and is a genuine, verifiable credential. A subject degree is evidence of subject knowledge but not of teaching skill. Exam-board experience, such as marking or examining, is valuable for exam technique but is a specific claim you can ask them to substantiate. None of these is automatically better than the others; what matters is that the claim is true and that it matches what you need.

The practical move is to ask for the evidence rather than the label. A tutor who genuinely holds QTS, a relevant degree or an examining role can show you or point you to proof without any fuss. Hesitation, vagueness or a redirection to their star rating is itself a signal.

4. Evidence of delivered results

The fourth check is the one people skip, and it is arguably the most important: has this person actually taught this subject, to this level, with results? Identity, a background check and a certificate all describe potential. Delivered results describe track record. What you want is evidence of completed work that a real student experienced and reviewed, not a testimonial the tutor selected and typed out themselves.

This is where a self-hosted profile hits its limit. A tutor writing their own page can describe glowing outcomes, and you have no way to separate the honest account from the flattering one. Verified, session-linked evidence, where a review is tied to a booking that genuinely happened, is a different class of proof entirely.

Why a star rating is not proof of qualification

It is worth being blunt about the five-star average, because it does so much of the persuading on most tutoring sites. A rating tells you that some past clients were pleased. It does not tell you who verified the tutor's identity, what level their background check was, whether their qualifications are real, or whether the reviews came from genuine completed sessions. A new profile can show five stars from a tiny handful of reviews. A likeable tutor can be popular and still be teaching above their competence. The rating is real feedback, but it is answering a different question from the one you asked, and treating it as proof of qualification is how confident-sounding profiles get booked.

How a credibility score bundles the four checks into one signal

Doing all four checks by hand, for every tutor on a shortlist, is a lot to ask of a busy parent. This is the specific problem a computed credibility score is built to solve, and it is worth understanding how it works rather than taking the number on faith.

On Tutorwise, credibility is not a label a tutor writes for themselves. It is a score the platform calculates, the same way for everyone, from real signals. Verified identity and a completed background check contribute. The qualifications a tutor holds contribute. Most heavily of all, delivered and reviewed sessions contribute, because the model weights what a tutor has actually done far above what they claim. Trust signals such as a verified email and phone add smaller amounts. The point of computing it centrally is that every tutor is measured on the same axis, so you are comparing like with like instead of decoding each profile from scratch.

Two design choices are what make the score worth reading. First, there is a hard gate: Tutorwise does not calculate a credibility score at all until a tutor has verified their identity or completed onboarding. A brand-new, unverified account cannot present itself as a scored, trusted tutor before any real check has happened, so the score is not diluted by profiles that have proved nothing. Second, the heavy signals cannot be bought or typed in. You cannot pay for a completed DBS, you cannot fake a delivered session that a real student reviewed, and you cannot write a higher score into your own profile. That is exactly why the number means something. A directory listing shows you what a tutor chose to say about themselves; a computed credibility score shows you what they have actually earned.

Put practically, it turns your four manual checks into one glance. Where you would otherwise be chasing identity, a DBS level, a certificate and a genuine track record across four separate conversations, the score has already folded them into a single, comparable signal, and you can see at once which tutors have substance behind the confident bio and which do not.

A worked example

Say you are shortlisting three GCSE maths tutors for your child. All three read well. Tutor A has a warm bio and a five-star average from four reviews. Tutor B lists a maths degree and "DBS-checked". Tutor C has a lower headline rating but many reviewed sessions.

Working by hand, you would message all three, ask A how many reviews sit behind the five stars, ask B what level their DBS is and who requested it, and ask C to explain the reviews. That is three conversations before you have even discussed your child. With a computed credibility score, you can see immediately that Tutor A's rating rests on almost no verified activity, that Tutor B has an unverified identity behind the claims, and that Tutor C's many reviewed, session-linked results have pushed a genuinely earned score above the other two. You still make the final call yourself, but you start it from evidence instead of from four separate leaps of faith.

What even a good score does not tell you

A credibility score is a strong, honest starting point. It is not the whole decision. It cannot tell you whether a tutor specialises in the exact exam board your child sits, whether their teaching style suits a nervous learner, or whether your child will actually get on with them. Those are questions of fit, and fit is yours to judge. Use the score to shortlist with confidence, then read the reviews, ask about the specific specialism you need, and, where you can, watch how your child responds to a first session before you commit further. The right use of the number is to spend your limited time and attention on the tutors who have already proved they are real, rather than on decoding the ones who have not.

Frequently asked questions

Do private tutors legally need a DBS check? No. There is no legal requirement for a privately arranged tutor to hold a DBS check, and a self-employed tutor often cannot obtain an Enhanced one for themselves through the standard route, only a Basic. That is precisely why you should ask what level of check a tutor holds and who requested it, and why a platform that verifies checks centrally is worth more than a self-reported "DBS-checked" line.

What is the difference between a Basic and an Enhanced DBS? A Basic DBS shows unspent convictions only. An Enhanced DBS is the level designed for people working closely with children and can include a check against the children's barred list. For a tutor working with your child, Enhanced is the relevant standard, so "DBS-checked" on its own does not tell you what you need to know.

Is a five-star rating enough to trust a tutor? No. A rating reflects how some past clients felt, not whether the tutor's identity, background check, qualifications or results are verified. A new or likeable tutor can show strong ratings without having proved any of those things. Treat the rating as one input, and check the four kinds of proof separately.

Can a tutor fake or pay for a credibility score on Tutorwise? No. The heavy signals behind the score, chiefly a completed background check and delivered sessions that real students reviewed, have to be earned in the real world. A tutor cannot buy them or type a higher number into their profile, and the platform does not compute a score at all until identity or onboarding is verified. That is what makes the score worth reading.

Should I still ask my own questions if a tutor has a high score? Yes. A high credibility score means the tutor is genuinely who they say they are and has a real track record, which is the hard part to check. It does not settle fit: subject specialism, exam board, teaching style and how your child responds are still yours to judge. Use the score to shortlist, then ask the questions that matter to your situation before you book.

More in this series

• How CaaS Works: Making Tutor Credibility Visible
• Why Verified Credibility Beats a Five-Star Average
• How Tutorwise Scores Tutor Credibility: CaaS Explained
• What Qualifications Do You Need to Be a Tutor?