Expert advice for opening your own hairdressing academy

For Westrow the launch of our Academy is the right move as it will be the foundation for future growth. We feel a centre of educational excellence is essential for the consistency of training standards and also part of the business plan to keep the Westrow brand high profile, while offering quality education to the hairdressing industry at large.

For Westrow's plans, a minimum of 5,000sq ft is required as this is a new business venture in its own right. If the plan was to deliver education just to staff in Westrow staff, then we would have looked at using unused space in one of our existing seven salons. 

The location had to be accessible from all areas geographically, which meant it had to be Leeds city centre, which has a fantastic transport network. This factor was key for Westrow in determining the location.

The decision to make the Academy open to external students was taken for two reasons. 

One was to hopefully improve the standard of training in the Yorkshire area and offer high quality education to anybody north of London, as the number of private academies aimed at non-NVQ training is very limited. 

The second reason was that for the Academy to be financially viable, another revenue stream is required.

We are still finalising the prospectus, which will be confirmed in time for the Academy launch later this year. We have chosen to keep things simple, but to focus on our key strengths, which as winners of the 2012 L'Oreal Colour Trophy is colour alongside classic and contemporary techniques. 

At present we are working with a designer and shop fitting company so all the fittings other than backwashes, styling chairs etc. will be made bespoke for the Academy. 

The project has started from a blank canvas and we have viewed various academies and training facilities to enable us to make decisions based on what does and doesn't work for others.

When the Academy is fully running it will have the capacity for 240 students on work-based learning (NVQ 2/3). The decision on how many students you take on/recruit is essentially made for you when you work on your financials and see the level of income required to make the project viable.

Staffing numbers will be decided on dependent on the number of learners enrolling. New staff that will be essential are an Academy Manager with experience of delivering and co-ordinating NVQ qualifications and Front of House/Administrator. 

These two positions, along with existing trainers, will enable us to deliver to 60 learners. For each additional 20 learners we will need one additional trainer.

We have formed a relationship with a training provider contract holder who is responsible for ensuring Westrow delivers the NVQ qualifications in the correct way. It will be Westrow Academy/Training staff that delivery all the education and theory/key skills.

Numerous business plans and budgets have been written for the finance house involved. These then need to be tweaked and altered as costs keep changing. In the current climate no finance house will consider lending without a viable business plan. Purchasing the freehold of the building was also key and a huge financial investment for us. 

The NVQ work based learning will run constantly all year round, but generally new learners will enroll in August/September as the funding is generally worked from September to August. Private education will be on a week-to-week basis dependent on demand.