Voiceover as a side hustle: what business professionals need to know
BRAVA founder and principal coach, Melissa Thom, shares her insights on what business professionals should really know before adding voiceover to their skill set, and whether working with spoken voice can realistically become a revenue-generating side hustle alongside an existing career.
I have a conversation at least once a week with someone who has spent years in a professional career- law, marketing, finance, education, healthcare- and who has quietly considered whether voiceover might be for them.
Sometimes the curiosity has been there for decades. Sometimes it's been sparked by an audiobook they've listened to, a commercial they've heard, or a colleague who mentioned it in passing. Almost always they ask me the same question: is voiceover a realistic choice for someone like me?
After 30 years in the industry and several years of coaching career changers through BRAVA, here is my honest answer:
The voiceover industry is larger than most people realise
The global audiobook market alone is heading for $31 billion by 2030. Add commercial voiceover, corporate narration, e-learning, video games, animation, documentary, and podcast production, and you have an industry that is both vast and actively growing.
This growth has increased demand for trained, professional voice talent, not just volume. Publishers, production companies, and creative directors are looking for voices that can act, sustain a performance, and take direction. Those spoken-voice skills can be learned; they aren't restricted to people who trained at drama school.
What professional experience actually gives you
One thing I've noticed consistently when working with career changers from professional backgrounds is that they often arrive with skills that translate directly into voiceover work, even if they don't recognise them as such.
Years of presenting in boardrooms, managing client relationships, or working in client-facing roles develop a natural authority and ease with language that is highly valuable in commercial and corporate voiceover. The ability to communicate complex information clearly and confidently is exactly what the corporate narration and e-learning markets pay for.
This doesn't mean professional experience replaces training. It isn't. But it does mean that many people who arrive at BRAVA's Foundation Course from business backgrounds have more of a head start than they expect.
What this side hustle really involves
A sustainable voiceover career requires significant craft development. Script analysis, performance technique, understanding of how to work with a director, knowledge of the different genres: these things take time and proper coaching to develop. You cannot shortcut them with equipment or stroking a fancy microphone.
People who make successful transitions into voiceover from professional careers approach it with the same seriousness they brought to their previous roles. They invest in training before they invest in kit. They understand that it's a long game.
Is it viable alongside a professional career?
Yes, with some caveats. Voiceover work is largely self-directed, can be done from a home setup, and doesn't require the same physical presence as most performance work. Many BRAVA alumni hold full-time professional roles and do voiceover work alongside them, earning meaningful additional income from commercial, corporate, and audiobook work.
How to find out if it's right for you
Our VO Foundation Course exists precisely for this moment of uncertainty. Three evenings of live, personalised training with me, covering the basics of the craft, the realities of the industry, and live feedback on your voice, is the clearest possible way to find out whether voiceover is something you want to pursue.
Some people come and it confirms what they've been quietly thinking for years. Others come and discover it's not quite the path they expected, but both are useful outcomes. Everyone leaves with a much clearer understanding of their voice and what it can do. It's powerful stuff, and we don't take one second of it for granted.
Every BRAVA training programme is built on The BRAVA Method™- a coaching framework developed from 30 years of professional broadcast experience, voice science, and certified coaching practice. The VO Foundation Course is where that methodology begins. The BRAVA VO Foundation Course
Three evenings online, £180 inc.VAT. Led by Melissa Thom. brava.uk.com/courses/foundation-course
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