Official Tier List for Teaching Jobs in Japan

37 comments

1. What official list is this exactly? Sounds fairly condensing.
   Not to mention I wouldn’t lump 290,00 in a group with 200,000.

2. Your jobs don’t match your salaries, pal. Do you honestly think most private dispatch ALTs make more than public dispatch ALTs? (hint: they make the same because they are dispatched by the same companies). Technical college jobs are the same as if not better than part-time university work. Direct hire private schools vary WILDLY. They could fit anywhere (salary-wise) from F tier to A tier on your list. It’s stupid to try to shoehorn types of jobs into tiers based on salary when so many of them can cover 3-4 of your “tiers” based on the specific institution one is employed by or time in service. You obviously don’t know your shit beyond ALT/JET and eikaiwa jobs, which are obviously accurately represented. But, here’s some engagement for your stupid troll tier list.

3. Looks reasonable. From my experience, full time gigs in HS/JHS start from 350/month. Also depends on if there are bonuses, allowances (travel, housing, dependent family), research budget, etc.

   For university, contracts usually start around 4.5 million a year. If you can get tenure, you can double that easily BUT you need a combination of qualifications/connections/timing.

   The sweet spot can be p/t at university. Assuming you can average even 30k per koma (a conservative number), a monthly salary of 450k is easily doable. Plus 15 plus weeks holiday per year.

4. Direct hire goes that high?

   Maybe I do not understand exactly what direct hire means. Doesn’t it mean that you talk with the school directly?

5. Think my happiest job minus salary on that list would be to work for some technical college. Some HS -College hyriid. Preferably a design or art school teaching something task based. As with anything money though, more is always better.

6. I’m so happy we have someone with such an extensive, god-like understanding of the hierarchy of gaijin jobs in Japan.
   Thank you so much for validating my B tier lifestyle. I still feel empty though as I’ve been in it for more than two years 😥 maybe you could enlighten us with how to get to that A tier that we assume you must be living in?

7. Money sometimes isn’t everything.

   This ignores that sometimes people like/want to work at kindergarten, sometimes people want better work/life balance and sometimes people can’t change jobs because they can’t move. I have to balance my life and job selection now against picking up my child, because my partner is a public school teacher and that is literal hell/he can’t. Loss of your ability to do anything other than work with your time – including weekends bc bukatsu – isn’t accounted for in this chart either and is why I would not become a tenured public teacher for any amount of money.

8. Sorry but this list is BS.

   OP. You know that the majority of teachers don’t make even close to 300,000 a month. To put that at F tier is just a way to make people feel shit about their salary.

9. I am curious about the numbers of jobs available too. I’d reckon the total number of people in A tier jobs is less than 500 in all of Japan.

10. Direct hire private schools making 400k is becoming such a thing in the past. You’re completely neglecting so many aspects of what private school is.. and how many schools are struggling due to lack of enrollment, and those private schools are starting to cheap out.

    The range of salary varies so much depending on 1) what kind of private school (girls school? boys school? elementary level? high school?), and 2) health of the school.

11. >D Tier ( ¥300,000- ¥350,000 a month)

    >JET

    You’re high. Per JET: https://jetprogramme.org/en/faq02/

    > JET Programme participants receive approximately 3.36 million yen in their first year of appointment

    You just barely crack into the 300k mark in the second year, and only if you meet the necessary conditions. You have to be with the program for 3 years before 300k is assured. Then, if you manage to make it to the 5 year mark, you’re rewarded by being kicked to the curb.

12. When you get to what you have termed ‘C-tier’ and above I think it’s pretty standard to get a decent chunk of your salary as bonus.
    Are you coming up with these numbers as annual salary divided by 12, or do you think this is what people get in their monthly paycheck?

13. US military on base/post school teachers make mid $ 100-200 K. Plus housing. Commissary and BX/PX privileges. Medical and dental. GS retirement. Thrift Savings Plan eligibility. Paid in US dollars. Annual COLA increases. Summers off. Paid. Plus Christmas and Spring vacation. Paid.

    You won’t get one unless you are a US citizen, military veteran, preferably with a VA disability rating, a dependent spouse or husband and have a masters degree.

    And then. Maybe. Getting a job in the Department Of Defense Education System is one of the hardest GS jobs to get. Numerous tests. And you kinda need an in.

14. I wondering where the holiday weekend shit stirring thread was. I just found it!

15. Put most of it in G Tier (under 250,000 a month)
    That’s basically your whole list right there.

16. I admire the OP for making this list and trying to bring some objectivity to a very chaotic situation, but I have a number of issues with his or her ideas.

    1) The first issue that I have with this list is that it is monthly salary which is not very useful. It really needs to be a list of annual salary and/or total compensation.

    For example, if someone is an ALT making ¥300,000 per month, but they don’t get paid in August (or have a reduced salary) than the monthly figure is not very useful. They would have to be setting aside part of their salary to cover the time they don’t get paid. There are some positions that advertise a monthly salary but that pay by the day, so the advertised monthly salary is only in months that someone works a full 20 days. Anytime there is a national holiday, a school holiday, or days when they don’t need an ALT (for example, testing days) people don’t get paid and their actual compensation goes down.

    Many A tier international schools have ‘ex-pat’ packages that include things like free or reduced rent and home leave packages. At a tier 1 international school that I am familiar with, if teachers live in school housing on campus they pay no rent and no utilities. If they live in a school sponsored apartment off campus they pay reduced rent. If they live on their own, then they get a housing allowance. They also get fully paid round trip airfare to their home countries for the teacher and their family members. It should be noted that this is only for teachers hired overseas. Any teacher that they hire locally doesn’t get these things only straight salary.

    Tenured university teachers have not only bonuses, but also various monthly allowances. For example, dependent allowances, housing allowances, etc. In addition, they have overtime (extra classes, working on the weekend, etc.), project compensation (entrance exam writing, research, etc.) and other miscellaneous compensation like per diem when traveling on university business. Some of these pay monthly (allowances, extra classes), some pay one off (weekends, per diem) and some pay at the end of the year (entrance exam). I’ve seen many, many people turn down a good, well compensated university position because they assumed that their total compensation was simply monthly base x 12.

    2) The second issue is that some of these jobs pay on scale, meaning that the salary changes according to several factors the most common of which is age. For example, at the private high school attached to my university a 30 year-old tenured teacher makes ¥4.2M annual (with a monthly base of ¥260,000 x 16) but is a F tier according to the OP. A 40 year-old teacher makes ¥6.3m annual (with a monthly base of ¥395,000 x 16) and is C tier. A 50 year-old teacher makes ¥8.5M annual (with a monthly base of ¥530,000 x 16) and is A tier. Different salaries all for the exact same job and would be classified differently by the OP. Also, that doesn’t include dependent allowances, etc., so it is not total compensation.

    3) Another issue is that many of these jobs that the OP listed actually span different tiers. For example, a university contract lecturer typically makes between ¥4m and ¥6m (annual). If the job is ¥4m it is C tier. If it is ¥6m it is B tier.

    4) One more issue is that some of these salaries are aspirational. Part-time university teaching for example varies widely. Here in Kansai, part-timers typically make ¥29,000 per koma with a few places paying more than that and quite a few paying far less than that. The trend is to pay less, not more. The lowest I’ve seen recently was ¥19,000 per koma. Someone would need between 12 to 15 koma (courses) to get the salary for OP’s tier. In my experience, it takes years of networking to build up a teaching load that high. Most lecturers, especially ones new to the field, only have about five or six koma and make between ¥150,000 to ¥240,000 per month. Most people I know have to still work eikaiwa/business English/private lessons or have other revenue sources to actually make a living. At my university for example, most of out part-timers’ main job is something else, for example free-lance translating, artist, tour guide, etc., or they have a spouse who is the main breadwinner. I know very few people who actually make a living only as a part-time university lecturer let alone at the level the OP is suggesting.

    5) Finally, “US Military base” schools, which is not what they are called by the way, should not be included on this list. Teachers there have SOFA status, not a Japan work visa, are paid in US dollars, and pay US taxes. They are quite literary outside of the Japanese education system and have no bearing on this discussion.

    Otherwise, I think it is a good start to a useful discussion.

17. Dang! I am well above A Tier and I don’t even have Job! 😆

18. “Official” according to what? AnyRecording9797?

    Well, if that’s “official”, what’s in the tier list certainly seems “accurate.”

19. This list is garbage tier.. someone spent their Saturday night making this? 😂.

20. That looks good.
    The only one that is wrong is teaching on military bases.
    Those jobs pay ALOT. Around 100k.as a contractor. 100k USD is sooo much money in yen.

21. Oh look. Another post from a new account. I wish the moderation was better on this sub.

22. >*In general, you should try to spend only 2 years max in a tier. It’s up to you to move yourself up

    TIL an ideal teacher career is only 10 years long at most.

23. I have worked in all tiers from Tier F to Tier B. The salaries seem accurate in my experience. Just remember that quality of life can vary drastically from job to job

24. I know multiple kindergartens that pay more than ¥300,000. And it’s actually been going up recently because they need people. Because, you know, it’s actually hard.

25. I like the assumption that any direct-hire ALT job will automatically mean a salary of over 300K a month. I’ve seen an increasing number of direct-hire jobs which offer well below that. I’ve even once seen a direct-hire ALT position (I think in Chiba prefecture?) which offered less salary than some ALT dispatch companies.

    As a side note, even though it’s harder to quantify when you’re first coming over, it’s often better to think in terms of yearly salary rather than monthly salary, as it’s easier to account for how much you get in bonuses. I’ve seen a ton of direct-hire positions which offer 300K a month salaries, but no bonuses. To put this into perspective, a monthly salary of 260K with 2 bonuses will usually end up earning you more on a yearly basis than 300K without bonuses.

    And then you have to account for other potential perks, such as housing subsidies, better health insurance, increased number of vacation days (I remember talking to somebody who had 30 paid vacation days a year), etc.

    And then there’s just life goals, satisfaction gained from work/life and the amount of income vs time spent working. Are you happy to earn just 300K a month and have a fantastic work-life balance, or would you rather earn 500K+ a month but potentially be doing 20-30 hours of overtime a week?

    That’s not to say that the best paid jobs definitely have overtime, by the way (though if you’re working as a licensed public school teacher, you probably will), and there’s a lot to be said for the extra job satisfaction you might get out of it, but that’s a decision everyone has to weigh for themselves.

    Tier lists don’t really work. Especially not when it’s this light on details, ignoring all the little ESID details.

26. Lol

27. So OP, what do you do?

28. Said this several times and I’ll say it again. If you work at an eikaiwa then you have a visa that allows you to do other things besides teaching. Lots of people will work part time at an eikaiwa for the steady income and do other things too. *As long it’s within your visa category,* you can do it.

29. Bro forgot ‘English school owner’. Income is literally unlimited.

30. I am a licensed public school teacher

    and your math on our salary is all jacked up

    I mean if you divide the bonus into the monthly salary, then early on in the career it is that, but any of my coworkers with 15+ years experience are making around 820,000 a month (if you divide their bonuses by 12) a public school teacher (depending on what additional responsiblities they have, like head of their grade, or in charge of discipline whatever) will make anywhere from 7.2mil a year up to 11 mil a year

31. Certified public highschool teachers start at 240k lol…

32. This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen on this sub. Pointless dick measuring like this does nothing to advance the discourse around pedagogy and the industry. This list is also riddled with mistakes as others have already pointed out. This is a bad post snd you should feel bad.

33. Thank you for your completely useless post

34. People really are negative nancies on this app, not everyone is all knowing and this was really helpful information if it’s exact or not it doesn’t matter it’s a general rule

35. Damn, if the notes on this are anything to go by, I appreciate my tier more than ever. But of course, the real world is always different.

36. This is so gross and elitist, honestly feel a bit sick

37. Some unis full time pay less than 400.