Balancing your day job and playing professinal darts - The life of a dart player on tours

Aden Kirk (left) and Darren Beveridge (right)

Only the top 64 darts players across the Professional Darts Corporation have earned more than the average UK salary.

But after the most successful World Championship ever, with over three million viewers tuning in, the PDC has increased the prize money for next years winner to a massive one million pounds – doubling the total of last year.

With the boom in popularity following the success of Luke Littler, there is more money in darts than there ever has been, but how good do you actually have to be to make darts your full-time career?

When looking into the PDC’s order of merit, which is a ranking order of the players based on their prize money earnings over a two-year period, only the top 64 have earned more than the average UK salary of £37,000.

But being a darts player isn’t cheap and most players won’t be taking home 100 percent of their earnings – with agents taking a cut, paying tax and various expenses, how do some of the best players make darts a sustainable career?

Well as it turns out, a lot of the pros on the tours balance their darts with various full-time and part-time jobs.

The question then is, how do they manage a gruelling schedule of travelling across the country and sometimes further into Europe, alongside their day jobs?

Darren Beveridge, 32, from Scotland, is a PDC tour card holder, and is on his second year with a place on the tours, having been successful at Q-School in 2024.

At the time of writing, he currently sits at 78 on the live order of merit, racking up £29,750 of prize money over the last two years.

When he isn’t playing darts, Beveridge is an aeroplane parts inspector, and is grateful to have a job that allows him the freedom to work around his busy schedule on the darts tour.

He said: “I've been quite lucky. My job is really good. Basically, I just go to work when I'm not at darts. They allow me to change hours so it's easy enough. I can just go to work and say I'm going to be away these days. And they're fine.”

Though for Beveridge, he thinks finding time to unwind amongst his busy schedule is the most difficult part.

“It's just trying to find that time in between where I can get a couple of days to myself to relax.

“So I'm not travelling for darts all the time, getting home, then straight back to work and then having my daughter at the weekend and then straight back to darts and work.

“I do need to find a couple of days just so I can unwind and relax as well.”

Beveridge explained how sometimes people don’t realise how much the darts tour has toll on players.

“I don't think a lot of people realise just how much travelling and effort you have to put in when you're on the Pro Tour,” he said – “There's a lot of challenge to it.

“Everybody seems to say to me, ‘you must love being away – ‘you get to relax for three days’, which is not true. I'm not relaxing for three days when I'm away.

“I've got to get up early, get to the venue, practice and then get back to a hotel room. It's very difficult to get normal foods and your home comforts from a hotel.”

Despite the tough parts of it all, Beveridge loves being able to play darts at the highest levels and has his eyes set on some targets for the future.

He added: “At the moment I'm just trying to keep my Tour card. I need to try and qualify for Players' Championship Finals, World Championships, keep winning events on the floor.

“Try and get to some European Tour events as well just to try and build up my ranking points so I can try and break into that top 64. That is my main goal for the end of the year.”

“I'd rather be doing darts full-time than darts and a job. I'd rather just be able to put my full focus into playing darts. That would be my dream anyway.”

Aden Kirk, 33, from Derbyshire, is a professional darts player on the PDC’s challenge tour and held a two-year tour card after qualifying from the development tour in 2017.

Kirk has also spent his darts career balancing a busy life alongside his passion for darts. He said: “Me and my partner have our own business and we've got a four-year-old and a five-month-old. In itself, that's a full-time job.

“Then I've got my day job as well, which is from 7:30am until 4:30pm whilst trying to fit practice in. Sometimes I go two or three days without having a throw because you just don't get time.”

Speaking on the difficult aspects of the tour, Kirk mentioned not seeing his children and losing a sense of a social life.

“You don't have much of a social life,” he added – “Your social life is going to darts. But I'd say more the last few years when you have kids, not seeing your kids on weekends, where you're living out of a bag all the time.”

Beveridge and Kirk, who share the same manager, both mentioned the importance of a good management team for a darts player.

Kirk said: “A weekend could cost the best part of £500 if you do it yourself, if not more. And having a management team, especially the one that I've got, because they're so good, there's no pressure. They make sure that everything that you need you've got.”

Beveridge similarly said: “They've been a massive help for me, just supporting me to try and get my tour card. Even if I've not been feeling that I'm confident enough and playing well enough, I've always got words of support. It's been great.”

Though darts has risen in popularity so much in recent years and the prize money keeps rising, many players are still balancing their passion with normal day jobs, and the sport’s working class heritage still shines through in the modern game.