Website legal requirements · for driving instructors
What a driving instructor’s website may say.
Paid lessons need registration or a trainee licence, and trainees advertise by DVSA’s rules.
Paid driving lessons in a car may only be given by an approved driving instructor on the register, or by a trainee who holds a current trainee licence. A trainee’s website or advert must not make them seem fully qualified: call yourself a “trainee driving instructor” (not “PDI”), name your training establishment, and give its contact details, not your own.
Chris Painter, founder of ThemeSmith · checked 28 October 2026 · every rule links to its source
The rules for driving instructors
What the rules ask of your website.
Paid lessons: registered, or a trainee licence.
No paid instruction in driving a motor car may be given unless the instructor is on the register of approved driving instructors (and not suspended) or holds a current licence to give instruction, the trainee licence.
Law · Great Britain · Road Traffic Act 1988, section 123(1)
Trainees: never look fully qualified.
When you advertise you must not make it seem like you’re a fully qualified driving instructor. Use the job title “trainee driving instructor”; avoid “potential driving instructor” and “PDI”, which the public don’t widely understand.
Regulator guidance · Great Britain · DVSA, Trainee driving instructor licence: the rules
Trainees: the school’s name and contact details, not yours.
Say which training establishment you work at, and give only its contact details. The establishment follows the same rules when it advertises for you.
Regulator guidance · Great Britain · DVSA, Trainee driving instructor licence: the rules
Not on the list
What the rules don’t ask for.
Your ADI number on the site.
We found no rule requiring a fully qualified instructor to publish an ADI number online. Showing that you’re an approved instructor helps pupils choose; it must be true.
The three rules every business has still apply.
A price shown to the public includes VAT; a limited company shows its registered name, number and office; a site that takes enquiries says how it will use them. What every UK business website must show.
Questions
What driving instructors ask.
Can a trainee driving instructor advertise?
Yes, by DVSA’s rules: as a “trainee driving instructor”, naming the training establishment and giving only its contact details, never looking fully qualified.
Can I put “PDI” on my website?
DVSA says to avoid “PDI” and “potential driving instructor” and use “trainee driving instructor”.
Building the site
A website for driving instructors, with this built in.
Other trades with a rule of their own: dentists · architects · physiotherapists · therapists and psychologists · estate agents · gas engineers · cafés, restaurants and caterers.