Swim instructor work opportunities in Langley, BC

Independent · Contractor · Part-time · Full-time

A Propel instructor teaching an adult to swim

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Who we are

Propel is a fast-growing company on a mission to change how the world learns to swim. Founded by swim instructors who had spent years inside the old system, we set out to break a status quo that left families on endless waitlists and instructors undervalued. In doing so we created something that did not exist before, and today we lead it: a new industry of swim instructors who independently teach on their own terms.

Who you are

You put in your time on the pool deck and taught more kids to swim than you can count. You know your craft and you don't need micromanaging. You are ready for more.

  • You enjoy teaching others the lifelong skill of swimming
  • You're a great communicator and love working with people
  • You're independent and can manage your time effectively

What you'll be responsible for

During lessons you run, you'll own every swimmer's experience from start to finish.

  • Keep your students safe, providing hands-on support throughout each lesson
  • Run effective lessons using your own style and teaching framework
  • Take each swimmer toward a goal, from absolute beginner to vacation swimmer

What qualifications you'll need

  • A recognized swim instructor certification (Lifesaving Society Swim Instructor, YMCA, or equivalent)
  • At least one year of paid experience teaching swim lessons

Why you'll love it

When people book lessons on Propel, they don't sign up to learn from whoever is scheduled to teach Level 3. Instead they choose you as their instructor. The students who start with you, stay with you, and you can take them from absolute beginner all the way to vacation-ready swimmer. Along the way you'll run into challenges: fear of water, bad habits to fix, and skills that plateau. It's up to you to break through those barriers, and when you do, the reward is knowing you changed lives while receiving gratitude from those you've helped. The day-to-day is good too:

  • Set your own schedule, teaching only when it fits your life
  • Teach 1 or 2 students at a time in quiet private pools
  • Give feedback how you see fit: out loud, on paper, or by DM
  • Earn more. Instructors took home an average of $52/hr in 2025

Our commitment to inclusion

You belong here. Propel welcomes instructors of every background and identity, and we want everyone, instructors and students alike, to feel safe, respected, and free to be themselves. We especially love the ones who never quite fit the mould elsewhere: if you teach with your own curriculum, your own framework, your own style, this is where it belongs.

Join our community

Comparing Langley swim instructor opportunities

The pool jobs in Langley sit with two separate municipalities, neither of which has a YMCA branch, and Propel is the third way in. That makes two municipal employers rather than one: the Township of Langley runs the three year-round indoor pools at Walnut Grove, W.C. Blair and Aldergrove, while the City of Langley runs a single seasonal outdoor pool at Al Anderson. They bargain separately, pay from separate wage schedules, and hire on separate timelines. Either is a reasonable way in if you are brand new, since neither asks for prior teaching experience. Once you have a year of teaching behind you, though, the comparison changes: on Propel you set your own rate, you teach one or two students at a time, you choose who you teach, you keep your own clients, and you can start whenever you are ready. Here is how the three compare.

PropelTownship of LangleyCity of Langley
Required certifications
  • Lifesaving Society Swim Instructor or
  • YMCA Swim Instructor or
  • equivalent
  • Lifesaving Society Swim Instructor and
  • Standard First Aid with CPR-C/AED and
  • National Lifeguard (Pool) and
  • National Lifeguard (Waterpark)
  • Lifesaving Society Swim Instructor and
  • Standard First Aid with CPR-C/AED and
  • National Lifeguard (Pool)
Experience required1 year minimumNo minimum; age 16+No minimum
When can you startYear round, anytimeCompetitions posted through the year, some internal onlySeasonal, tied to the outdoor pool season
Starting hoursSet your own schedule anytimeA fixed weekly pattern named in the posting, often 21 to 27 hours, with early starts from 5:30amCasual shifts across the outdoor season
Compensation$52/hr (average take-home in 2025)$27.30 to $31.97/hr across five steps for Recreation Worker IV, Lifeguard/Instructor, on 2024 rates$31.74 to $32.72/hr for Lifeguard/Instructor, progressing by hours worked, on 2024 rates
Pools you would workPartner pools in Langley TownshipWalnut Grove, W.C. Blair and Aldergrove, all indoor and year-roundAl Anderson Memorial Pool, outdoor, seasonal; closes 2026-09-28 for the season
Who you'll teach2yrs+, any level you chooseRotated class assignments, plus guarding and pool maintenance dutiesRotated class assignments, plus guarding
Students per hour1 or 24 to 124 to 12
Teach your own clients?Yes, bring outside clients anytimeNot permittedNot permitted
Insurance coverage$10,000,000Not publishedNot published

New to aquatics? All three paths start with the same certifications. See our guide on how to become a lifeguard or swimming instructor, or learn more about teaching with Propel.

Teaching with the Township of Langley

The Township of Langley operates all three of Langley's year-round pools and hires for them itself, through unionised CUPE 403 positions. The job it actually posts is called Recreation Worker IV, Lifeguard/Instructor, and the name is literal: the same role guards the water, teaches the lessons, and handles custodial work and pool chemistry. Getting in means holding four certifications before you apply, attaching them to the application, and accepting a weekly shift pattern that the posting has already written for you. It is a structured path with a published ladder, and the Township is unusually open about how to climb it.

The application process

Township aquatic hiring runs as numbered competitions rather than one annual intake, and they appear through the year. Two Recreation Worker IV competitions are on the public record, one opened 2024-11-21 and one opened 2026-03-16, each for up to five regular part-time positions and each open for about three weeks. Some competitions are internal only and never reach the public board. You apply through the Township's Njoyn portal with every required certification attached and valid on the day the posting closes; applications missing those attachments are treated as incomplete. Only short-listed candidates are contacted for an interview. All Recreation division roles are treated as positions of trust for child safety, so a Police Information Check is required before you are hired, though not as part of the application itself. The Township does not publish an in-water screening stage, and it does not publish how long the process takes from application to first shift. What it does publish is preparation: free lifeguard information sessions, and a paid Lifeguard Training course framed explicitly as practice for its own application process.

Building seniority

Recreation Worker IV advances through five steps, from $27.30/hr at step 1 to $31.97/hr at step 5 under the last published CUPE 403 schedule, as of 2024-01. A two-year successor agreement was ratified in August 2026, retroactive to 2025-01-01, at 3.5% in each year; the renumbered wage tables had not been published as of 2026-08-31, so the 2024 figures are the ones the Township itself was still quoting in its March 2026 posting. Two smaller items sit on top of the base rate: a Recreation Worker IV asked to work as a Recreation Worker V receives an extra $1.00/hr rather than the higher classification's rate, and lifeguards and aquatics instructors who work 900 or more hours in a calendar year can request a $100 annual swimsuit allowance. Hours themselves are set by the posting. Each numbered position in a competition carries its own weekly pattern, between roughly 21 and 27 hours, with the exact days and times listed and early starts of 5:30am or 5:45am recurring across them.

Long-term career opportunities

The ladder above the entry job is written into the collective agreement. Recreation Worker V, Senior Lifeguard/Instructor, runs from $28.37 to $33.25/hr and asks for everything Recreation Worker IV requires plus Occupational First Aid Level 1, Grade 12, a pool operator course and about two years of equivalent full-time aquatic experience. A separate salaried track exists in the agreement's Inside Division, where Aquatics Instructor sits at pay grade 12, Pool Service Worker at pay grade 15 and Aquatic Leader at pay grade 17, the last running from $31.97 to $37.58/hr on a 35-hour week. All figures as of 2024-01. In practice every located Township aquatic competition was for Recreation Worker IV, so the salaried positions are documented rather than regularly posted. The Township is also the local training provider for the credentials the ladder requires, teaching Bronze Medallion, Bronze Cross, Swim Instructor and National Lifeguard at Aldergrove, Walnut Grove and W.C. Blair, which makes it straightforward to keep awards current once you are inside the system.

Teaching with the City of Langley

The City of Langley is a separate municipality from the Township, with its own council, its own recreation department and its own union local, CUPE 2058. Its entire aquatic operation is one site: Al Anderson Memorial Pool, an eight-lane 25 m outdoor pool in City Park that runs a summer season and closes for the rest of the year. It pays more per hour than the Township does, and it has far fewer hours to offer.

The application process

Hiring runs through a single careers page and only for competitions that are currently open; the City does not accept general applications. Copies of your required certifications go in with the application, one application per competition, in Word or PDF only, with no cloud links. Only candidates under consideration are contacted. What the City does that almost no municipal employer does is publish a live status tracker for closed competitions, showing whether each one is at screening, interviewing, filled, on hold or cancelled, so you can see where a posting stands without calling anyone. Timing matters more here than anywhere else in Langley, because the competitions follow the pool season. The most recent aquatic competition on record, #26-04 for up to 30 casual Lifeguard/Instructors, closed 2026-02-06, ahead of the summer.

Building seniority

Progression at Al Anderson runs on hours worked rather than years. A Lifeguard/Instructor starts at $31.74/hr, moves to $32.26/hr after 740 hours and $32.72/hr after 1,480 hours, per the CUPE 2058 schedule as of 2024-01, with the start and top of that range confirmed again by the City's January 2026 posting. The practical constraint is the calendar: banking 1,480 hours at a pool that operates a summer season takes several seasons, and an instructor who works both Langleys is on two different ladders at once, because the Township advances by five steps and the City advances by hours.

Long-term career opportunities

Above the front line there is one short chain: Shift Supervisor at $33.23 to $34.23/hr, Lead Shift Supervisor at $34.68 to $35.60/hr, and Manager at $37.42 to $38.37/hr, all as of 2024-01. There is no teaching-only classification anywhere in the schedule. The City's published agreement expired 2024-12-31 and no successor has been located, so these remain the last published figures. One thing worth watching: on 2026-10-17, alongside the general local election, City of Langley voters receive a separate non-binding ballot question asking whether they support continuing planning work on expanding Al Anderson Pool to year-round operation. The City has been clear that the vote does not authorise construction and that borrowing would still require a separate approval process, so it changes nothing about the job today.

Common questions about swim instructor jobs in Langley

Which Langley do you apply to, the Township or the City?+

They are two separate employers, and for year-round aquatic work the answer is the Township. The Township of Langley runs all three indoor pools, Walnut Grove, W.C. Blair and Aldergrove, and hires through CUPE 403 competitions posted across the year. The City of Langley runs one pool, Al Anderson Memorial Pool, which is outdoor and seasonal, and hires through CUPE 2058 for the summer season. They have separate councils, separate recreation departments, separate wage schedules and separate application systems, so applying to one does nothing for you at the other. The pay runs opposite to the hours: the City's Lifeguard/Instructor starts at $31.74/hr and the Township's Recreation Worker IV at $27.30/hr, both as of 2024-01, but only the Township can offer work in February.

How much do swim instructors make in Langley?+

It depends on which employer and which path. With the Township of Langley, a newly certified Recreation Worker IV, Lifeguard/Instructor starts at $27.30/hr and reaches $31.97/hr at the top of a five-step scale, per the last published CUPE 403 schedule as of 2024-01; a successor agreement ratified in August 2026 adds 3.5% for 2025 and 3.5% for 2026 retroactively, but no renumbered table has been published. With the City of Langley, the same job title starts at $31.74/hr and tops out at $32.72/hr after 1,480 hours worked, as of 2024-01. On Propel you set your own rate, and instructors took home an average of $52/hr in 2025. That average spans all experience levels rather than being a starting rate, and actual earnings vary with your price, availability, location, season, and demand.

Why does the Township of Langley require National Lifeguard Waterpark?+

Because of Aldergrove. Since 2025-04-01, the Township's entry aquatic job, Recreation Worker IV, Lifeguard/Instructor, has required National Lifeguard Waterpark on top of National Lifeguard Pool, Standard First Aid with CPR-C and AED, and the Lifesaving Society Swim Instructor award. The reason is that Aldergrove Community Centre's aquatic offering includes The Outdoor Experience, with a wave pool, a river channel, three waterslides and a splashpad, which is waterpark engineering rather than pool engineering. Neither the City of Langley nor most neighbouring municipalities asks an entry pool guard for that award. If you are stacking certifications specifically for Township work, budget for it, and note that the Township's own catalogue currently schedules the combined Pool and Waterpark recertification but not a standalone Waterpark course.

Do you need to be a lifeguard to teach swimming in Langley?+

For the municipal jobs, yes. The Township of Langley requires National Lifeguard Pool for every aquatic classification that touches swim lessons, including the salaried Aquatics Instructor position, and the City of Langley's pool schedule has exactly one front-line rung, Lifeguard/Instructor, with no teaching-only line beneath it. The one Township classification that does not require National Lifeguard is Recreation Worker III at $25.22/hr step 1, as of 2024-01, and no Recreation Worker III aquatic competition has been located. Teaching and guarding are separate qualifications, and the reason they travel together here is employer-driven, not regulatory. To teach on Propel you need the swim instructor award, since you are teaching private lessons rather than guarding a public pool.

What does it cost to get certified for swim instructor work in Langley?+

The Township teaches the whole stack itself at Aldergrove, Walnut Grove and W.C. Blair, so the prices are public. Taking the cheapest scheduled session for each award in the Township's Fall 2026 catalogue, Bronze Medallion at $162.00, Bronze Cross at $220.50, Swim Instructor at $508.20 and National Lifeguard Pool at $457.60 come to $1,348.30. That figure is a floor, not a total: it excludes Standard First Aid, excludes the National Lifeguard Waterpark award the Township now requires, and excludes candidate fees and course manuals, which every course description states are not included in the advertised fee. Recertification is cheaper, at $60.50 for Swim Instructor and $66.00 for National Lifeguard Pool, or $66.00 for the combined Pool and Waterpark session. Course fees reset seasonally, so check the current catalogue before you plan around these.

What is the hiring process like for Township of Langley aquatic jobs?+

It runs as numbered competitions, not as a rolling intake. A competition opens, stays open for roughly three weeks, and names how many positions it is filling, usually up to five. You apply through the Township's Njoyn portal with every required certification attached and valid on the closing date; incomplete applications may not be considered. Only short-listed candidates are contacted for interviews, and a Police Information Check is required before employment because Recreation roles are classified as positions of trust for child safety. Some competitions are internal only and never appear publicly. The Township publishes no in-water screening stage and no timeline from application to first shift, so plan on the wait being open-ended. It does offer free lifeguard information sessions and a paid preparation course if you want to walk in ready.

What are the hours and shifts like for swim instructors in Langley?+

With the Township, the shift pattern is part of the posting rather than something you negotiate afterwards. Each numbered position in a competition lists its own weekly pattern with exact days and times, typically between 21 and 27 hours a week, and early starts at 5:30am or 5:45am recur across the patterns. You are effectively choosing a schedule when you choose which position to apply for. With the City of Langley, work is casual and bounded by the outdoor pool season, which in 2026 ended on 2026-09-28. Teaching on Propel works the other way around: you publish your own availability, take bookings only in the windows you have opened, and teach year-round in indoor partner pools rather than around a season.

Can you teach private swim lessons on your own in Langley?+

As an employee of either municipality, assume not: like most municipal pools, Langley's do not permit staff to teach their own paying clients in the water they work in. Teaching independently is a different question, and there the constraint is pool access and cost. The Township prices commercial facility use as its own rental tier and quotes its Aldergrove pool on request, and the City of Langley charges $237.00/hr for commercial pool rental in six fixed weekly windows, as of 2026-08. That is why Langley's private operators teach in a hotel pool, a private residential pool and their own facility rather than in municipal water. Teaching on Propel is the simpler route: you teach in partner pools in Langley Township, set your own schedule, and Propel handles bookings, payments, and up to $10,000,000 of insurance for a 16% booking fee.

Is there a YMCA in Langley for swim instructor work?+

No. Neither the Township nor the City has a YMCA branch, and there is no contracted or nonprofit aquatic operator in either municipality; both run their own pools with their own unionised staff. The nearest YMCA aquatic centre is the Tong Louie Family YMCA in Surrey. In practice that removes the nonprofit rung that exists in Surrey, Vancouver and Toronto, so a Langley instructor who wants non-municipal work either commutes out of the Township or teaches in non-municipal water. The private operators that do work in Langley teach out of a hotel pool at Sandman Signature Langley, a private pool in the Glen Valley area, and a dedicated facility in Walnut Grove.

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Township of Langley figures are from the CUPE Local 403 collective agreement, Schedules "A" and "D", rates effective 2024-01-01, and from Township competitions 24-U198 (opened 2024-11-21) and the Recreation Worker IV competition opened 2026-03-16, both of which quote $27.30 to $31.97 per hour as 2024 rates. A successor agreement was ratified 2026-08-19 and 2026-08-21, retroactive to 2025-01-01 at 3.5% per year; renumbered wage schedules were not published as of 2026-08-31. City of Langley figures are from the CUPE Local 2058 collective agreement, Schedule "D", rates effective 2024-01-01, and from City competition #26-04, which closed 2026-02-06 and quotes $31.74 to $32.72 per hour as 2024 CUPE rates. Certification requirements are from the Township's aquatic job postings and its published aquatics career pathway; where the Township's aquatics-jobs web page and its job postings disagree, the posting language governs. The National Lifeguard (Waterpark) award has been a Recreation Worker IV requirement since 2025-04-01. Course fees are Township Fall 2026 catalogue prices and exclude candidate fees and manuals. Facility rental rates are as of 2026-08. Class ratios are per Lifesaving Society Swim for Life program standards. Propel earnings are measured take-home pay: instructors took home an average of $52/hr in 2025 across all experience levels. This is illustrative, not a promised rate; actual earnings vary with your price, availability, location, season, and demand.

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