About Oak National Academy
What is Oak National Academy?
Oak National Academy is a national not-for-profit funded by the Department for Education. It describes itself as "a fast-paced, innovative organisation working to improve pupil outcomes and close the disadvantage gap by supporting teachers to teach, and pupils to access a high-quality curriculum", and as "a national not-for-profit working in partnership with teachers to create the highest-quality, sequenced curriculum and lesson resources for pupils across all subjects and age groups". Everything Oak publishes is "free, and always will be. No paywalls, package tiers, or hidden costs." Oak began as a pandemic response — "during the pandemic, pupils completed 150 million of our lessons" — and now covers key stage 1 to key stage 4, alongside AI tooling that helps "teachers create, adapt, and enhance their lessons". Oak National Academy Limited is registered at 1 Scott Place, 2 Hardman Street, Manchester (company no. 14174888).
Where will I work?
Anywhere in the UK. Oak is "a fully remote, mission-driven organisation offering high levels of flexibility, autonomy, and purpose", and adverts offer "fully remote working — we'll support your home set-up and offer coworking options if preferred". For people who want company there is "a small office space in central London" plus "flexi-desk arrangements around the country". The team meets face to face for "twice-yearly in-person offsites to collaborate, connect, and have fun"; Oak's recruitment profile also describes "termly all Oak meetings in person".
What is the Oak team like?
"At Oak, we work towards a culture of freedom, responsibility and continuous improvement. To achieve this, we are building a lean but expert team who want to make a difference in education. Our employees are talented, caring, candid and believe in working together to find better solutions." Oak is explicit about being evidence-led rather than habit-led: "we believe in trying new approaches and not being restricted by how things have been done in the past. That said, we look for evidence and data to underpin our approaches and our experiments. We use this approach in all that we do from product development through to organisation rhythm and the employee package." Hiring runs on Applied, a blind-recruitment platform that anonymises applications, and roles are advertised at a single named salary. The pitch to candidates: "do your best work, for the right reasons."
Work-Life Balance
Oak publishes its working week precisely: "our full-time weeks are 36 hours and compressed to 4.5 days so we have half day Fridays or one Friday off every fortnight", restated in job adverts as "a 36-hour working week, with half-days on Fridays or every other Friday off". Annual leave is "25 days annual leave, plus one extra day for each year of service (up to 28)", with "additional Oak closure days over Christmas/New Year". Although much of Oak's work follows school terms, "our employment contracts are year round". Flexible working hours sit alongside the compressed week, and Oak sums the offer up as "a culture that genuinely supports flexibility, autonomy, and trust".
Perks and Benefits
- 36-hour week compressed to 4.5 days — half-day Fridays or every other Friday off
- 25 days annual leave rising to 28 with service, plus Oak Christmas closure days
- 11% employer pension contribution to Nest, with no minimum employee contribution
- Fully remote across the UK, with home set-up supported
- Small central London office, coworking options and flexi-desks around the country
- Twice-yearly in-person offsites
- Enhanced maternity and paternity leave, additional parental leave and paid emergency leave
- Life insurance
- Employee Assistance Programme
- Professional development plus mentoring and coaching
- Equipment allowance