Common questions relating to buying a Kumon franchise

Franchising is a way of doing business. Kumon offers a proven business model, and by buying a Kumon franchise you are establishing a relationship with a successful company. You will be able to use our systems and capitalise on Kumon's existing brand awareness in order to get a quick return on your initial investment.

Kumon has been running in the UK for over 25 years now, but it is also a worldwide organisation which has been running for more than 50 years. We are not a small company which could disappear overnight. There are currently 58,000 students studying Kumon throughout the UK, and over 4.2 million worldwide.

When buying a start-up franchise, Kumon would expect you to invest a minimum of 20 hours a week in developing your study centre. With established study centres - either one you have developed yourself or in the case of buying an existing franchise - we would expect a fulltime commitment, i.e. a minimum of 40 hours a week.

Please note, when starting your own study centre, it is important to note that you are not allowed to work more that 20 hours in any other employment. All Kumon study centres open for a minimum of two days per week. You must also be a UK citizen and hold a full UK driving licence.

When buying a start-up franchise, we would expect you to invest a minimum of £3,000 over the first 18 months of operation. This would include £400 for your initial license fee, with £2,600 being earmarked for marketing during this period. In addition, rent and other running costs are extremely reasonable. In the case of franchise re-sales, a fee is paid to the outgoing Instructor for taking over their business.

The Kumon programmes are designed for students to work through independently, with guidance from the Instructor. As an Instructor your understanding of the programme is vital to the success of your students. We therefore require Instructors to work through the programme materials themselves as part of their initial training. We also expect ongoing development through worksheet study groups so that with your peers you can gain a better understanding of the programmes.

No, you may only open a study centre in the locale identified by Kumon. All venues or change of venues must be approved by a representative from Kumon usually the Franchise Recruitment Manager in conjunction with the Regional Manager for your region).

Within reason, yes. There are some obvious places like church halls and libraries which are better suited to a Kumon study centre. You will be dealing with young children and families for the majority of your Kumon career, so please bear this in mind when choosing your venue.

That is entirely dependent on you. Many of our classes reach the 200 mark and there are several centres that have over 400 students. The limiting factors in class size are number of assistants, venue size, commitment and time. Large study centres don't happen overnight, and take real commitment and dedication from the individual Instructors involved.

Each study centre can operate with large numbers of students because of our unique educational approach. Each student studies individually prepared work that they can complete independently. This means that students can 'drop in' to the study centre at a time suited to them, do their work and leave. Despite this form of independent learning, large Kumon study centres will none the less have many staff on hand to assist the Instructor in the class room.

This is quite a tricky one to answer as it depends on the assistants you recruit, and how well you train them. We have a few study centres of over 300 students with only three assistants; but the three are highly skilled, and the Instructor has invested a lot in their training. A very basic benchmark for your first year as a Kumon Instructor is that you will need two assistants once you have 25 students. Ongoing growth would then be approximately one assistant per 15 students.

This depends on how much you want to train them and how valuable they are to you and the running of your study centre. The lowest you must pay them is the national minimum wage.