First place to work as a personal trainer

So you have just got your personal training qualification from the YMCA or Premier and you are looking for work where do you start ? You can go one of two ways freelance of work for a gym.  I started working for fitness first as they allowed me to work partly for them where they paid me a salary and partly freelance where I hired the gym from them on a weekly rate basis.  This allowed me to build a client base in the gym so I could go completely freelance hiring the gym from them.  In the past this was ideal as this allowed personal trainers to make a good salary and have freedom, now its quite the opposite.  Gym chains such as LA Fitness and Virgin Active now charge personal trainers high weekly personal training rent which takes out a huge amount of the profit.  The benefit of using gyms to personal train at is that there is a flow of customers yet with these high rates it is not as appealing as it once was.  The other alternative is on your own completely freelance this is very difficult as it is highly competitive but if you pick a niche market or market yourself in a particular area of London where you are well known then you can build up a good client base.  Freelance personal training can be done in park or clients homes or in a personal training studio like ours.  I set up personal training studios to be the ideal place for London personal trainers who have a client base you pay £12 an hour gym hire so you can still make a good profit and you get your own key to access the gym so you can come at what ever hour your client needs training as we are a 24 hour gym.