Careers

Our Values

The Key could be your opportunity to make a profound difference to the working lives of 100,000 school leaders and governors, and others across the education sector. We are a team of socially conscious, passionate people, who are all motivated to do something incredible. Join our team today and help us make a difference.

Member focus

A commitment to understanding members’ needs and challenges, helping them deliver for their pupils, schools and communities

A growth mindset

A commitment to open thinking and continuous learning, development and innovation

Uncompromising standards

A commitment to knowledge, service, value and delivery

Working together

A commitment to collaboration and teamwork while celebrating our breadth of opinions, perspectives and backgrounds

Why work for us?

Work-life balance

We offer 22 days’ annual leave in your first year, 25 days in your second and 28 days from your third, along with the option to buy or sell holiday each year. We also offer flexible working options, childcare vouchers and a generous parental leave policy because we understand that life isn’t just about work. Additional benefits include:

Season ticket loan We want to help you start and end the day right, so offer to help with a season ticket loan for public transport
Beer o’clock On Fridays we wind down tools at 4.30pm and have a beer or non-alcoholic drink together

Wellbeing

We offer discounted gym memberships and savings on bikes, through the cycle to work scheme, to help our people stay active and healthy. We also provide free access to a 24 hour digital healthcare service and have a team of wellbeing ambassadors across all of our offices to support your mental health. Additional benefits include:

Refreshments We provide cereal, fruit and drinks to keep everyone well-fuelled
Eye tests We contribute to the cost of eye tests and glasses
Flu jabs We provide flu jabs to help keep bugs at bay
Life assurance For the worst case scenario, we offer life assurance to cover our people
Pension We encourage our people to take part in our contributory pension scheme

Professional development

We are passionate about professional development and want to make the most of our people’s talents, so we help cover the cost of training courses, books and anything else that might support your career growth. Additional benefits include:

Company bonus If we meet targets, we reward everyone’s hard work with an annual bonus
School governors We encourage our employees to become school governors and provide 4 extra annual leave days for governor duties
Refer a friend If any of our employees refer a friend who is successful and passes probation, the referrer receives £500

Team building

We organise welcome team lunches, summer and Christmas socials, and away days to encourage our people to get to know each other and let their hair down. Our social committee also organises charity bake sales and yearly auctions for everyone to get involved in.

“The Key supports wellbeing in a way that I have never experienced before.”

Aga, PA & Office Manager (Maternity cover)

“Since day one, I’ve watched well-deserving colleagues get promoted, encouraging me to reach my own full potential on my path to career progression.”

Nathalie, Senior Product Marketing Executive

“It’s not very often that you get to work with a bunch of people who are as committed, intelligent and forward thinking as they are at The Key – everyone really cares.”

Anna, UX Designer

“Working at The Key gives me a real sense of purpose. I love knowing that what I do helps to give genuinely practical support to schools across the country.”

Xavier, Lead Content Producer

“What really makes the company great is the people and the work environment. Everyone works together to do the best for both the company and its customers.”

Charles, SP Sales Executive

Our recruitment process

Our recruitment process is designed to help ensure that we hire the best people to work at The Key, and to give you an idea of what the role would entail.

CV & cover letter

Once you find a position that you’d like to apply for, we usually ask you to submit your CV and cover letter letting us know why you want to work for The Key and how your experience fits. A member of our team will then review your application.

Telephone interview

We may then contact you to organise a short telephone interview with the line manager. The aim here is for us to find out more about yourself and for you to ask any questions that you may have.

Mission

The mission is a timed written or technical task designed to test your skills and way of thinking and to give you an idea of what you’d be doing day-to-day at The Key. This can be completed at home at a time suitable for you. NB. for some roles the mission may come before the telephone interview.

Face-to-face / video interview

If you’re successful, we’ll invite you to an interview with a panel of around 3 people to talk through your mission and your experience in more depth.

Meet the CEO

As the final stage, our CEO likes to meet all candidates before we make a job offer. This is less formal than the other stages and will give you a chance to ask any further questions.