Experiences of transitioning from working in higher education to a school.

[beachhut2000]

I am very interested to find out about the experiences of people who have moved from working in UK HE to a school environment, particularly in a Professional Services/ student support capacity.

i have spent the vast majority of working life working in the university sector. Although there have been many positive reasons for staying, it feels a good time to move on, given the instability of the sector in general.
The team I currently work in is woefully under resourced, with ever increasing student, managerial and academic staff demands and a general expectation to accept the situation or leave.

Has anyone successfully transitioned to working in a school, or conversely found this a difficult and ultimately unsuccessful move? Any experiences will be very helpful.

I have done the transition in reverse - worked for a while in Finance in a couple of multi academy trusts which ran groups of both primary and secondary schools, am currently working in Finance for a top UK university.

I did not enjoy the multi academy trust roles. I found the sector desperately underfunded and working conditions were very poor. Staff morale in all parts of the organisations was consequently very low. I have found working conditions, pay and benefits much better in my higher education role and a much more collaborative, caring ethos all round. Though the organisation I work for is one of the top in the UK so experiences in other HE institutions that are struggling more may well be very different. We aren’t currently under threat of large scale redundancies here in the way others are.