Deputy head’s PA salary London

[Raindropsonmynose]

I work full time in the tech sector now in and. Senior and demanding role. I have been thinking of making a career change for a better work life balance- a role has come up in my daughters school for a deputy heads PA that I have lots of transferable skills for. We are in London - can someone advise what the pay scale for such roles tend to be ? It’s a GDST school if that helps. The job spec doesn’t mention the pay grade.

I'd be a bit wary - we had a teacher who became a PA but she didn't take into account that she'd be doing lots of Boring stuff like typing, filing, photocopying etc and couldn't delegate to office staff because she was the office staff - she also can't do really necessary things like mail merge because the secretaries used to do that

Also I recruit as part of my role, I wouldn't shortlist a person unless they had these basic skills and a bloody good reason for wanting to take a huge downward step and be able to cope with doing all the 'can you sort/do this for me' type jobs

@frumpybear thanks ! Those are very valid points. I have mostly worked In startups though so don’t really have a secretary to sort things. Am used to doing my own filing, organising and day to day tasks so to
Speak. But that said , you are right in that’s it’s a huge change. I also need to think of the financial side.

What kind of hours do PAs work? Is it term time only?

Private schools are nototious for sucking in applicants by not advertsing pay. It is supposed to run contrary to safer reruitment guidleines and is said to contribute to the gender pay gap becuase many of the jobs advertised without clear pay are 'women's jobs' and we won't ask or negotiate, allegedly.

Anyhoo, that aside, even in London, I would expect a Deputy Head's PA to be woefully underpaid and to work some hours outside of term time, and be paid pro rata. The term PA is widely used in education to talk up what is basically a fairly unskilled/ deskilling admin role.

Do you know what specifically the Dep Head does in the school? If they are in charge of pastoral stuff or admissions ect the role might be more interesting.

As for hours, ours work up til 4 to 4.30 generally and begin between 8 and 8.30.
I ahve found a few online : Putney High School (so a similar school?) is paying a head's PA/ receptionist dogsbody and jill of all trades up to about 32k but this sounds good pay. Other jobs online are suggesting somewhre between 18k and 25k for head's PAs... I am guessing you would be line managed by a head's PA.

Hi. I work in a GDST school. Our head's PA is a central cog and utterly magnificent. She seems to be there 8.30 through 5? I think. She's in over school holidays ( which she says is lovely because no pesky staff!)

A lot of her job is fielding parents and managing the time schedule of the head. The meetings can be endless, I think. Parents are VERY demanding so having someone soothing is very important.

I used to be a PA before I went into teaching. The job is only as good as the boss. If you have a crap boss then your job is crap too.

PAs in schools and all school office staff get paid a lot less than equivalent jobs in London. The holidays, I think, are 5 weeks PA so not school holidays but they may have to be taken in school hols. Remember that costs for holidays rocket in school holidays by a huge amount - fine if you've got kids and are stuck but if you have t then bear that in mind. GDST are a good employer and all the hr and legal stuff is done by head office. If your school doesn't have a separate HR type admin person then the head's PA does all of that too, which makes life more interesting than typing up letters.

Thanks all! I had a chat with the school and figured out this one isn’t for me ! Thanks for all the super helpful replies !