Education/learning officers and Equality/inclusion officers

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I am a recently qualified teacher in my first year, due to several things I have decided I wish to pursue a different career path once I finish this year.

Any learning/education officers or equality/diversity officers out here?

Im considering making the move and both of these roles seem very appealing to me. How hard are they to come by? What does the day to day work look like and is there the possibility for career progression? Also, and pardon me for asking, what do the salary brackets tend to be ?

Thank you.

Who do you think those people work for?

They are not standard education roles in England (although role names can be very regional)

Can you explain what each role includes?

I used to do equalities in a public sector irg. Been out of the game since approx 2010 when everything was cut back. I think most roles are now strategic and policy, most likely to come under hr. If they exist at all any more, given the bonfire of the quangos.

Hello!
I’ll do my best to explain.

Education/learning officers work within a variety of settings, such as museums, national trusts, local authorities, etc The role generally includes planning and delivering educational programmes that serve the community, schools and colleges.

Equality/diversity officers can be part of any business/organisation. Their role tends to focus on promoting inclusion of minority groups, reviewing policies, providing guidance and structuring good practices.

I hope this makes sense!

Both those roles exist within university administration, you start off in a junior role more of less where you can get a foot in the door. Once in opportunities to move around will come up, internal job opportunities, secondments etc. You could also work in similar roles in large HR divisions, have a look at the CIPD website for HR industry info. Learning and development particularly with an online/digital focus has plenty of opportunities right now obviously. Have a look on LinkedIn at peoples profile who have those job titles, that will give you some insight into what they do, how they progressed, who they work for and what qualifications they have.

I’m an Inclusion officer in the NHS: quite senior. It’s a mix bag. A lot of it is managing competing groups eg inter-racial relationships, which is tricky. Also managing situations where people’s interests and the law collide Eg trans patients. Then there’s more clinical stuff like analysis of patient data eg for black patients under the mental health act. I work in HR and have a career of working for different voluntary sector charities that worked for different communities that are protected under the equality act.

It’s quite specialist and can be well paid if you have experience and can lead a big trust through the legal waters. You also have to remain calm and coherent and on the right side of the law when faced with utter knobheads.

You also have to accept that you’ll be on the wrong side of grievances as part of the job really.

There are some really satisfying things, when you feel cultural change is really happening.

Have you considered learning technology/instructional designer posts?

Some of my former colleagues now work in teaching roles for museums and other organisations such as hospital-based life sciences education. Those roles are incredibly hard to get into as there are many well qualified and experienced teachers who apply to get out of working in schools.

I used to work as an Education Officer/Manager for a large museum and it was a fab job. The salaries in the sector are not great- officer level was £21k, manager £25k. Access and inclusion staff earned similar.
Sadly now is not the time to move into this sector, it's been decimated by Covid. My former colleagues haven't worked since March (museums closed, most staff furloughed). Redundancies will be coming soon.
Business/industry will be your best bet. Good luck!

Thanks everyone! These are some lovely and helpful replies. I will note all suggestions as they have opened my mind to further possibilities.

THERE are very few experts in Inclusion - maybe four or five per county. They will vary in salary but in the NHS they are around 28-45k so it’s not bad at all. If you were keen and approached me locally then I’d give you some good advice and ignore you stayed ini touch or offered to do a voluntary project I’d probably hire you next time around. So it’s worth contacting your local trusts or ccg or council perhaps to ask for the lead equality officer.

THAT should if you stayed in touch! Not ignored you...

Learning officers in heritage/museum are often paid very poorly, and lots of short term contracts (very project based) and as many of them have museum or archival post grad qualifications it can be very competitive (though teachers are desirable but some heritage experience will be required as well, usually via voluntary work).

I have a friend who earns very, very well as an inclusion officer of sorts for a prominent bank.

Guardian jobs is probably the starting place

Although I don't want to sound too negative, it's a hugely rewarding job with a lot of variety, but as it's so desirable I think that does impact pay and availability 🙄

I moved from teaching into an education outreach role, working as part of a museum learning team. This was back in the early noughties and I've since moved on again. A few points:

Definitely less stressful than teaching. Dramatically so. My mental health improved tenfold.

Some roles are based at a site like a museum but a lot are outreach - moving from school to school. So there can be a lot of travel. My previous patch was anywhere within the M25, so I could be in Upminster in the morning and Kew in the afternoon.

Pay is usually less than teaching - especially in the arts sector. I took a 5 grand or cut to leave teaching. And funding streams in the arts sector are less stable so a lot of fixed term contract posts. Tends to be better in private sector or local council - if you were delivering road safety education for the LEA etc.

When you leave work, you're done for the day. No piles of marking, lesson planning etc. Getting my weekends back was properly liberating.

It's both more diverse and more restrictive than teaching. Diverse in the sense that you often find yourself mixing with wider groups of people - corporate stakeholders, curators, designers, partner agencies (I worked a lot with the police, fire brigade etc.) But can be restrictive in the sense that you may be delivering a fairly specific education programme, so the breadth of lesson content can be narrow. That can get a bit samey...

Hope that helps.

How did you get on?

I'm looking at some equality officer roles and curious!