Live the dream! Top scuba diving jobs for SSI Professionals
February 5, 2024
Have you ever considered becoming a professional scuba diver? It allows you to travel the world, meet people from all walks of life, and explore the incredible underwater world you love – all while getting paid to do so.
When most people think of becoming a professional diver, they think of teaching courses, which is the avenue that most dive instructors take. But did you know that there are other scuba diving jobs as well? In this article, we are going to explore the top diving jobs to inspire you to live your ultimate dream!
How to become an SSI Diving Instructor.
First, let us take a quick look at the pathway to becoming an SSI Diving Instructor:
Becoming an Open Water Diver is the first step on your journey to becoming a professional scuba diver. This program involves a mix of theory, confined water, and open water sessions. By the end of it, you will be confident to dive independently with a buddy or in a diving group anywhere in the world.
- Specialty Diver / Advanced Open Water Diver.
Now that you are a certified Open Water Diver, you can explore the different types of diving that interest you the most. Whatever your passion is, there is an SSI Specialty for you! You can choose from over 20 advanced diving courses, including wreck diving, boat diving, night diving, and underwater photography/videography.
- Dive Guide and Divemaster.
Becoming a Dive Guide is an exciting time; it is the first professional-level diving program you will complete. When you become a Dive Guide, you will learn to give dive briefings, perform dive site evaluations, and lead the dives!
This means you will be in charge of navigation under the water, and showing people cool marine life along the way. You can start exploring scuba diving jobs from here or continue learning to become an SSI Divemaster.
Becoming an SSI Instructor.
Once you have completed all of these steps, you are ready to become a Diving Instructor. Once certified, you can apply for exciting scuba diving jobs worldwide and teach numerous SSI programs, including Scuba Diver, Open Water Diver, Enriched Air Nitrox, Diver Stress & Rescue, and Dive Guide.
Top scuba diving jobs for SSI Instructors.
1.Train future Divemasters.
After gaining experience as an Open Water Instructor, you can become a Specialty Instructor and start teaching SSI specialties. Once you have taught enough specialties, you will automatically qualify to be an Advanced Open Water Instructor. After this, you can become a Divemaster Instructor and help Divemaster trainees achieve their Divemaster status.
2. Teach the next generation of Diving Instructors.
Becoming an SSI Instructor Trainer is a huge privilege and accomplishment. It is one of the best scuba diving jobs to aim for and a very rewarding career pathway. As an Instructor Trainer, you will teach and qualify brand new Open Water Instructors and ensure they are ready for their dream scuba diving jobs. Before you can do that, you need to work as an Assistant Instructor Trainer.
3. Become your own boss with an SSI Training Center.
If you love scuba diving and want the freedom to work when you want and how you want, open up your own SSI Training Center. As the owner of a Training Center, you get to decide how often you teach, have staff to help everything run smoothly, and you can open your center in your dream location.
For many divers, having your own Training Center is the ultimate dream when thinking about scuba diving jobs. You will see new divers come in every day and give them the best experience possible for their learning journey.
4. Become a Marine Biologist.
Marine biologists study a wide variety of marine life and can dive at incredible locations as part of their work. Tasks include observing marine life in their natural environment, gathering data, monitoring and managing populations, and contributing to marine conservation. Marine biologists at dive resorts often get to lead marine safaris and take people diving as well. When it comes to dream scuba diving jobs, this is one of the most sought-after!
If you want to become a Marine Biologist, get started with SSI ecology courses. You can become a coral diver, learn how to identify fish, complete a marine ecology course, and learn how to dive with sharks, manta rays, and more.
5. Inspire others as a blogger or vlogger.
As an SSI Diving Instructor, you will be living what many people consider the dream! People love to see you living your best life, diving every day, and exploring locations around the world.
As a blogger or vlogger, you can inspire others to live their dream, educate the world on marine conservation, give diving tips, and showcase beautiful underwater scenes that you can look back at forever. If your blog or vlog becomes popular enough, there are even ways to make money from it, through sponsorship and adverts, or crowdfunding.
With all of these scuba diving jobs for SSI Instructors, the world truly is your oyster! What are you waiting for?