About Oriel Square
What is Oriel Square?
Oriel Square is an Oxford-based educational publishing and research consultancy that delivers high-quality content development, communications and strategic advice to commercial and charity education organisations worldwide. The company combines deep publishing expertise with research and product-development skill across curriculum, ELT, professional development and content creation for major UK and international clients.
According to the company's own about page, Oriel Square has "well-established links with the major UK-based global educational publishers, charities, awarding bodies and EdTechs across the world." The team works across strategic planning, communications, educational products and services, bespoke professional development, and package training — including the regular Education Insights newsletter and an EdTech Fellowship programme run in partnership with Cambridge.
Where will I work?
Oriel Square has an office close to the centre of Oxford. The live Research and Publishing Assistant JD describes the office arrangement verbatim: "We welcome our team to the office as many days a week as they want to work there, with an expectation of two days a week as normal practice." Tuesdays and Thursdays are the team's anchor in-office days — the /the-oriel-square-four-day-week/ post is explicit: "Everyone at Oriel Square works on Tuesdays and Thursdays, normally in our Oxford office."
What is the Oriel Square team like?
The team is led by co-founders John Deans (Technology and Innovation Director — "An experienced publisher, developer and senior manager" with ELT and digital-publishing background) and Sam Derby (Strategy Director — formerly at Pearson "across professional development, qualifications, digital teaching and learning and publishing"). Other named senior team members on the live /oriel-square-team/ page include Claire Gilbert (Head of Operations), Hannie Kirkham (Research and Strategy Manager), Keira Moulding (Communications Manager), Sarah Bean (Publishing Programme Manager), Liz Cremona-Howard and Maegan Dobson-Sippy (Publishers), and Eva Steenhuis (Associate Commissioning Editor).
The company describes itself as value-driven on /work-with-us/: "We're a value-driven company; read about the values which drive us here. Our values inform our belief in productive hours, not long hours."
Work-Life Balance
Oriel Square has run a permanent four-day, 28-hour week since 2017 — and notably without pro-rating salaries. The /the-oriel-square-four-day-week/ post (Claire Gilbert, 12 July 2022) explains verbatim: "Unlike many companies who say they work a four-day week, we don't work longer days; we work 7 hours a day for four days, totalling 28 hours a week. That means the 4 Day Week campaign accredited us as a gold standard employer."
The post is also explicit on compensation: "We don't pro-rate our salaries either. Everyone gets paid the full-time equivalent salary, using publishing industry benchmarking data." Every employee has a "regular non-working day" with the option to swap days week-to-week "to take a long weekend without requiring extra holiday." The live Research and Publishing Assistant JD (April 2026) confirms the policy is still in force: "Oriel Square believes in productive hours, not long hours. This informs our 28 hour full-time policy."
Perks and Benefits
The live Research and Publishing Assistant JD (April 2026 PDF) lists the full benefits package verbatim:
- Full time (28 hours / 4 days) — non-pro-rated salary at full-time-equivalent rates
- £28,000 p.a. for the Research and Publishing Assistant role (other roles benchmarked to publishing industry rates)
- 20 days' holiday (equivalent to 5 weeks) + public holiday allowance
- Workplace pension
- Laptop + dedicated workstation including monitor and other peripherals provided when working from the Oxford office
- Flexible non-working day with the option to swap days for long weekends
- Hybrid working with expectation of two days per week in the central-Oxford office