Nail Technician

A nail technician is a trained professional, specializing in offering a range of nail treatments to clients and working to improve both the condition, health and appearance of their client’s nails. A nail technician typically works in a salon or nail bar, but there is also the option to work self-employed as a freelance nail technician, working from home and/or mobile. Requested treatments for your clients could range from a basic manicure treatment to a bespoke decorative design, including nail art or extension processes; requested treatments typically correlate with the latest nail trends. Nail repair is also popularly requested, especially for clients with extensions.

Due to the nature of the job, it is important that nail technicians are aware of the health and safety procedures, as well as hygienic requirements, before embarking on a role in this industry. The Beauty Academy offer a wide range of treatments to assist you in launching into this chosen career with the appropriate knowledge.

To embark on a career as a successful nail technician, it is important that you are able to make your clients to feel relaxed and welcome in your company. Interpersonal skills are necessary to successfully network potential clients, as well as a tactful and diplomatic manner in the company of clients to ensure repeat custom. Being able to come up with creative ideas, use initiative and ensure these ideas are refined with an excellent attention to detail are skills you will develop as you train in nail technology.

You will also benefit from having a business-orientated mindset when at work; being able to retail products whilst you are performing treatments could potentially generate further income and selling additional treatments can encourage repeat business; many salons and mobile nail technicians’ work closely with brands for this purpose.   

You will develop all the appropriate technical skills for this career route during your training, covering the basics of hygiene in the workplace, health and safety factors, contraindications, as well as the specific treatments involved in becoming a nail technician, working to an industry-required standard.

To work from home and/or mobile, you will need to obtain diploma certificates in your specified treatments in order to obtain the necessary insurance.

If you are considering gaining employment within the industry, or looking to eventually open your own salon, it is in your interest to achieve a Level 2 qualification. Level 2 qualifications are required to enable you to work in a salon or nail bar, whilst a Level 3 qualification with Education & Training may allow you to further progress into running training courses or working as a tutor within nail treatments with a training provider/college.

As a self-employed nail technician, your working hours will be structured around the appointments you make with your clients. Your working days and hours can be flexible and you have the scope to structure your hours to your own schedule. However, you may be required to work both in the evenings and over weekends, as this is when many people are likely to book in treatments. This working pattern is particularly suitable for those with other commitments, such as young children, who like to schedule their work inside of school hours, and many beauty therapists are self-employed over salon-employed for this reason. 

A factor to be aware of as a nail technician is the travelling involved in working from mobile. You may have to travel to your clients’ houses which could be a distance from your own, depending on the range of which you wish to work, so you need to ensure you have the means to do this.  Being self-employed also means that you are relying on your clients to generate your financial income; it is important that you are aware that clients can occasionally be unreliable.  However, you have the opportunity to see as many clients in a day as you can, whereas a nail technician in a salon is capped on income they can earn as they are in contracted employment.

Many nail technicians find their work rewarding for the reason that they are responsible for making their client’s feel good about themselves. Furthermore, it is often not just the treatment that client’s look forward to, but often client’s enjoy the overall experience and personal connection with their nail technician.

As you become more experienced and your financial stability increases, you may choose to open your own premises once you have the means to do so in terms of clientele and income, and respectively employ junior therapists to work for you whilst in a managerial role, giving you more flexibility in working hours. 

Your career path may also progress into a specialized sector of the nail industry, such as working for an agency on sets or editorial shoots for publications, providing manicures and painting the nails for models. With further progression and once teaching qualifications have been acquired, you may also want to advance into teaching students and becoming a Beauty Tutor for private and further education beauty colleges.

Book your training…   

It is important that if you are looking to work as a self-employed nail technician, you hold the required certificates to obtain appropriate public liability insurance to cover you working from home or mobile. You will also need to be working to an appropriate level of practice, including hygiene requirements and health and safety factors to avoid incidents. Your training with The Beauty Academy will cover this vital information, along with all the required practical skills.   

Build up your client base…   

As soon as you have begun your training, you will want to start building a client base to offer your treatments to. Advertising via social media, creating hand-outs for friends and family to spread around and even advertising in the local paper can all help encourage potential clients to book in for treatments with you. Once they have received and enjoyed their treatment, it is likely they will recommend you to their friends and thus building your client base. 

Create your brand… 

To establish your business, you will need a memorable and appropriate brand to represent what you do. Elements to your brand, such as logo, website and social media pages are all important in ensuring your brand has the appropriate amount of exposure and accessibility to potential clients, and this will inevitably help you to get noticed and discover more clients. Our Starting a Business in Beauty Therapy home-study course will help you to acquire the required business know-how to do this successfully.