Join our team
The Fair Education Alliance (FEA) unites 300 member organisations under a shared vision that no child’s success is limited by their socioeconomic background.
Our members (charities and social enterprises, think tanks, businesses and foundations, youth organisations, unions, universities and schools) are working collectively to create an inclusive system.
If you’re looking to join a values-led team that’s making an impact, read on!
Current vacancies:
Director of External Affairs
Contract: Permanent (subject to probationary period)
Hours: Full-time (37.5 hours per week).
Compensation: £80,000 - £85,000 (including London weighting). Comprehensive pension scheme (up to 6% employer contribution), cash plan healthcare package, and professional development budget.
Location: London. There is flexibility to work remotely alongside regular attendance in London at our office and external events, and some nationwide travel. The role will involve some evening commitments. After passing probation, up to four weeks ‘super remote’ working per year, where you can work anywhere in the world as long as you’re online for four hours of the UK workday.
Holidays: 38 days per year, including our 3-day winter shut down and eight flexible bank holidays.
Start Date: As soon as possible (to be agreed with the successful candidate.)
Application deadline: 2 November (9am)
About the Role
You will lead FEA’s communications, reputation, brand, policy insight, public affairs and influencing work, bringing these disciplines together into a coherent external affairs strategy that strengthens FEA’s profile, credibility and impact. Drawing on evidence, insight from our members and the voices of young people, you will turn FEA’s work into clear positions, compelling stories and purposeful engagement with the people who can help change the system.
You will lead through two specialist Heads, the Head of Communications and Head of Policy Insights, and be accountable for the effectiveness of the External Affairs function as a whole. You will set direction, sharpen priorities and ensure the team works in an integrated way, with clear standards and measures of success. You will also work closely with colleagues across FEA, particularly our Collective Action and Collective Strength teams, ensuring that learning from our work, the expertise of our members and the experiences of young people inform our communications, policy and influencing. In turn, you will ensure strong communications and member engagement are embedded across our work.
As a senior leader in a relatively small organisation, you will combine strategic leadership with the judgement and flexibility to get close to delivery when it matters. You will be equally comfortable setting FEA’s external strategy, advising the CEO and SLT, providing evidence to a select committee, coaching senior colleagues, shaping a major piece of communications or policy work, and stepping in to ensure the quality of important external content. You will also be a senior external representative for FEA, building relationships with policymakers, sector leaders and other key stakeholders.
This role is for someone who can operate at both movement and organisational level: building FEA’s external authority, connecting evidence with lived experience, and helping our members and young people speak with clarity and collective strength at moments when the national conversation on educational equity can shift.
Head of Communications
Contract: Permanent (subject to probationary period)
Hours: Full-time (37.5 hours per week).
Compensation: £56,00 - £60,000 (including London weighting if relevant). Comprehensive pension scheme (up to 6% employer contribution), cash plan healthcare package, and professional development budget.
Location: This is a hybrid role, and you will be expected to be in our London office at least once a week. Some nationwide travel is expected for team meetings, events and conferences.
After passing probation, up to four weeks ‘super remote’ working per year, where you can work anywhere in the world as long as you’re online for four hours of the UK workday.
Holidays: 38 days per year, including our 3-day winter shut down and eight flexible bank holidays.
Start Date: As soon as possible (to be agreed with the successful candidate.)
Application deadline: 2 November (9am)
About the Role
You will lead communications for the Fair Education Alliance at a pivotal moment for our mission: bringing people and organisations together to tackle educational inequity. This is an opportunity to shape how a national alliance speaks, listens and mobilises — helping our members, partners and wider audiences see both the urgency of the challenge and the possibility of collective change.
You will give direction and energy to communications across the FEA. You will engage and connect our member organisations, showcasing their work, strengthening shared messaging and helping them see how their individual efforts contribute to a bigger movement. You will also help the FEA reach the people who can influence, fund, champion and accelerate change — from policy makers and business leaders to charity CEOs, sector partners, the media and the wider public.
Working closely with the Director of External Affairs and colleagues across the FEA, you will turn strategy into powerful, practical communications. You will lead a small team, shape campaigns and publications, make the most of our digital channels, support member engagement and ensure our voice is clear, credible and compelling wherever it is heard.
You will bring strategic judgement, excellent storytelling instincts and the confidence to influence a wide range of audiences. You will be comfortable moving between big-picture thinking and hands-on delivery, able to lead others with clarity and care, and motivated by the chance to use communications to build momentum, deepen relationships and inspire action for educational equity.
Head of Operations and Systems
Contract: Permanent (subject to probationary period)
Hours: Full-time (37.5 hours per week). We will also consider applications at 0.8 FTE.
Compensation: £49,000 - £51,000 (including London weighting if relevant). Comprehensive pension scheme (up to 6% employer contribution), cash plan healthcare package, and professional development budget.
Location: This is a hybrid role, and you will be expected to be in our London office at least once a week. After passing probation, up to four weeks ‘super remote’ working per year, where you can work anywhere in the world as long as you’re online for four hours of the UK workday.
Holidays: 38 days per year, including our 3-day winter shut down and eight flexible bank holidays. Pro-rata for part-time working.
Start Date: As soon as possible (to be agreed with the successful candidate.)
Application deadline: 19 October (9am)
About the Role
You’ll join the Fair Education Alliance at a moment when strong, thoughtful operations can unlock even greater impact. This is a new leadership role for someone who wants to build the systems, rhythms and ways of working that help a growing, mission-led organisation run with clarity, confidence and care.
As Head of Operations and Systems, you’ll be the person who sees how the pieces fit together — people, systems, governance, compliance, data and day-to-day operations — and turns that picture into practical solutions that make work better for everyone. Working closely with the Chief Operating Officer and senior leadership team, you’ll help create the conditions for colleagues, trustees and members to focus on what matters most: advancing educational equity.
You’ll have real scope to shape how the FEA grows: strengthening HR and people operations, improving the systems colleagues rely on, keeping governance and compliance robust, and bringing structure to complex work without slowing people down. If you like spotting what could work better, bringing people with you, and building foundations that allow others to thrive, this role offers the chance to make a visible difference from day one.
We’re looking for someone who is confident and collaborative, who combines strategic judgement with the willingness to get into the detail. You’ll be energised by making organisations work well, trusted by colleagues because you bring clarity and follow-through, and motivated by the belief that strong people practices, systems and governance are what enable a team to do its best work.
Impact and Evaluation Manager
Contract: Permanent (subject to probationary period)
Hours: Full-time (37.5 hours per week). We will also consider applications at 0.8 FTE.
Compensation: £40,000 - £42,000 (including London weighting if relevant). Comprehensive pension scheme (up to 6% employer contribution), cash plan healthcare package, and professional development budget.
Location: This is a hybrid role. Our head office is in London, and you will be expected to attend the office at least once a month. Your work will include working closely with colleagues in our Place-based Collaboration Partnerships in Liverpool, South Yorkshire and the West Midlands, and you will be expected to travel to those areas regularly, on average once a month per location.
Holidays: 38 days per year, including our 3-day winter shut down and eight flexible bank holidays. Pro-rata for part-time working.
Start Date: As soon as possible (to be agreed with the successful candidate.)
Application deadline: 26 October (9am)
About the Role
This is an exciting opportunity to shape how the Fair Education Alliance understands, demonstrates and strengthens its impact at a pivotal moment in our work. As our new Impact and Evaluation Manager, you will help us tell a clear, credible story about the difference our Alliance, members and partners are making for children and young people — from our Place-based Collaboration Partnerships in Liverpool, South Yorkshire and the West Midlands to our national work influencing change across the education system.
In this newly created role, you will bring rigour, curiosity and practical insight to the way we gather, analyse and use evidence. Working closely with the Heads of Place-based Collaboration Partnerships, you will implement tailored evaluation frameworks, lead on data collection and analysis, and produce high-quality impact and progress reports for funders and stakeholders. You will play a key role in helping colleagues and partners understand what is working, where we are learning, and how our work contributes to wider systems change.
You will also help build evaluation capability across the FEA Secretariat, supporting teams to set meaningful goals, measure progress and use evidence to improve. From contributing to our organisational impact framework and annual Membership Update process to analysing the impact of major events such as the FEA Summit and Youth Summit, you will make sure our impact work is useful, ethical and actionable — not just for reporting, but for learning out loud and driving change.
We are looking for someone who is confident working with both quantitative and qualitative data, able to translate complexity into compelling insight, and motivated by the chance to embed strong evaluation practice across a growing movement for educational equity. You will be collaborative, thoughtful and highly organised, with the credibility to work across teams and partnerships and the enthusiasm to shape a brand-new role with lasting influence.