Diving instructor

A diving instructor is a person who trains and usually also assesses competence of underwater divers. This includes freedivers, recreational divers including the subcategory technical divers, and professional divers which includes military, commercial, public safety and scientific divers.

Depending on the jurisdiction, there will generally be specific published codes of practice and guidelines for training, competence and registration of diving instructors, as they have a duty of care to their clients, and operate in an environment with intrinsic hazards which may be unfamiliar to the lay person. Training and assessment will generally follow a diver training standard.

Recreational diving instructors are usually registered members of one or more recreational diver certification agencies, and are generally registered to train and assess divers against specified certification standards. Military diving instructors are generally members of the armed force for which they train personnel. Commercial diving instructors may be required to register with national government appointed organisations, and comply with specific training and assessment standards, but there may be other requirements in some parts of the world.