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People LeadZen Educate · London
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Zen Educate

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People Lead

🗓️ Posted 2026-09-14 London Hybrid Human Resources Recruitment
💰 Salary Not shared 📊 Market 4,500 GBP–6,500 GBP/mo

About the Company

Helping schools across the UK and the US find top quality educators. Proud to be a Certified B Corp. At Zen, we're a certified B Corp transforming how schools and educators connect, because every student deserves consistent access to excellent teaching. Zen Educate is a digital staffing platform matching teachers, teaching assistants (also known as paraprofessionals or classroom aides), special education support staff, substitute and supply teachers, early years and early childhood educators, and wider school support staff with schools. By replacing traditional agency intermediaries with smart matching technology, Zen Educate charges roughly half the typical agency fee - so educators earn more and schools save money. Over 13,000 educators have found roles through Zen Educate, and 2,000+ schools actively book staff through the platform every month. The matching engine fills over 97% of short-term daily substitute and supply teacher requests. Educators sign up online, complete safeguarding and background checks, set preferences in the app, and get matched to daily, long-term, or permanent roles. Founded in 2017, Zen Educate is an accredited social enterprise and government-approved education staffing supplier, backed by Series B funding led by Round2 Capital and grown through the acquisitions of Opus Education, Aquinas Education, and AK Education. Proud to be a Certified B Corp. Education Administration Programs Specialties: Education Staffing, EdTech

Responsibilities

  • ● Type: Full-time, onsite
  • ● Hi I'm Ashni, I'm the Global VP of People across the UK, US, Canada and South Africa, and I'm looking for someone to partner with me and lead our UK team.
  • ● Today, my People Team is a global function and you'll be taking on a high impact role in supporting a UK team of 270+ people (and growing ) and a global team of over 600. You'll work closely with our Co-Founders, Slava and Oren, our Senior Leadership Team and the wider People function to make sure we have the people, leadership, structure and processes needed for the next stage of growth
  • ● The simple version of the role is: Help us build an organisation where great people can do great work, managers genuinely manage, and our People practices scale as quickly as the business does. This isn't a role for someone who wants to sit on the sidelines advising from a distance. We're looking for someone who can spot what needs to change, build the solution and make it happen.
  • ● What we're building and why
  • ● Schools in the UK and US spend over 12bn a year on agency staff, and 3.6bn of that goes straight into the pockets of recruitment agencies. That's why we've built an alternative.
  • ● Zen is an all-in-one digital platform that gives schools full control over how they find, vet, and manage temporary educators. Think "tech startup," but solving a painfully human, operational, and systemic issue in education staffing. Our platform is built to be scalable and intuitive, designed in close collaboration with schools and educators to fit seamlessly into existing school workflows. School leaders can search, book, and manage staff in real time, while gaining full visibility and control over their spend and compliance. We are incredibly proud that our approach to helping Schools and Educators has led to us becoming a Certified B Corporation .
  • ● We've had tremendous success and are currently experiencing a period of exceptional growth. We're looking for a seasoned operator to come in, roll-up their sleeves, and get their hands dirty working closely with senior leaders across the business.
  • ● What we're looking for
  • ● You'll have a demonstrated record of driving exceptional results in People domains or subdomains. This likely will be in either a high-growth startup or other performance obsessed organisation.
  • ● Some of the traits that usually correlate with success in this role:
  • ● Relentless drive to deliver tangible outcomes
  • ● Endless curiosity
  • ● Hold a wildly high performance standard for themselves and those around them
  • ● Systems level thinker adept at driving clarity from ambiguity
  • ● Boundless resilience for dealing with the tricky parts of the People tradecraft
  • ● What your first 6-12 months might look like
  • ● You'll be a player coach assuming a day 1 line management for a team of 5 individuals across the US and UK. No two days are the same and you could be getting stuck into things like: