How to become a lifeguard: Lucia's story

Meet Lucia, 17, from Sussex. She's a lifeguard at a swimming pool at King's Leisure Centre. Part of our Bitesize world of work series.

I’ve had to learn how to deal with people in stressful situations.

What is your job?

I watch the pool most of the day. I clean and occasionally I make rescues. When I first come in, we do a sweep of the building to make sure everything is safe and clean. You can lifeguard from 30 minutes to an hour and a half, until someone comes to cover you. We look after the whole building here.

Lucia on duty on the lifeguard chair. — Image caption,
Lucia is on duty from thirty minutes to an hour and a half at a time.

What skills do you use in your work?

We have to do a course to become a lifeguard called the NPLQ, which I did when I was 16. You don’t have to be the most amazing swimmer – as long as you have the right techniques, you’ll be fine. You need to make sure you’re on time, because if someone has been on shift for an hour and a half, then you need to be ready to take over! Communication is really important. I used to be quite shy before working here, but now I’m fine speaking to people! Teamwork is also crucial because you have to rely on everyone in your team, especially during rescues.

What are you studying in school?

For A-levels, I’m doing Spanish, PE and Psychology. I was also doing Biology but, with everything else I was doing, it was too much!

How did you get into your job?

I saw an advert for the Level 1 Swimming Teaching qualification and I took the course here. The instructor on the course is a duty manager at the pool and she offered me the lifeguarding job. I shadowed a few shifts before I got started. I now do swimming teaching here too. I can’t be on my own yet, but I can be with a Level 2 teacher. I am hoping to do a Level 2 Swimming Teaching qualification.

Was this a job you always knew you wanted to do?

I’m part of a swimming club, and when I was younger, I remember seeing the lifeguards singing in the changing rooms and I thought: "I want to be part of that!"

You hope to be a paramedic in the future – how does being a lifeguard feed into that?

A lot of this job is about helping people, and we’re First Aid trained here. One of the rescues I made was someone having a seizure in the water, so I’ve had to learn how to deal with people in stressful situations.

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Top tips

I think this is a good ‘deciding job’, because there are a lot of elements to it and there are a lot of skills you can pick up. Even if, like me, you have a different career in mind long term, you can learn so much from being a lifeguard
Jobs like this can boost your confidence. Mine has given me the courage to speak to people – if I had been interviewed for this article a couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to do it
Just do what you love. I love being here, because it makes me happy - and I’m getting paid for it.