A NEWLY-LAUNCHED educational recruitment firm aims to become the agency of choice for Irish teachers coming to Britain to find work.
Based in London, the founders of Uniform Education have 30 years of industry experience between them and claim Irish teachers are among the most coveted by schools across Britain.
“Between us we’ve placed more than 50 teachers in schools across London and the home counties in the past three years alone,” Uniform Education co-founder and director Daniel Grace told The Irish Post this week.
“We have seen what they can bring to British schools – arriving with an enthusiasm, a passion for teaching and an excellent curriculum knowledge behind them - and from our experience, schools here are starting to lean towards Irish teachers rather than the former model of recruiting from Australia, New Zealand and Canada.”
The 34-year-old father-of-two, whose parents hail from Bohola in Co. Mayo and Banteer in Co. Cork, added: “It also helps that the schools can easily conduct an initial Skype interview with Irish candidates and from there can invite them across for a follow up, on a relatively inexpensive flight, to meet face to face, whereas this can’t happen so easily from other countries.”
Mr Grace, who founded Uniform Education with fellow directors David Owen and Laura Myers, officially launched the business on May 22, claiming they will bring a fresh approach to the education industry – where he has worked as a recruitment specialist for the past ten years.
“Having a combined 30 years’ experience in the industry, we have seen first-hand how the education recruitment market has changed in the last five years,” he said.
“Schools in Britain are facing their biggest recruitment challenge to date, and spent in excess of £300million on recruitment agencies last year.
“With school populations growing this will only increase and we want to provide a cost-effective solution for all of our clients, whilst providing an excellent service and - more importantly - superior candidates to our competitors.”
He added: “So we decided, having all previously worked for other firms in the education sector, to take our expertise and experience and use it to change the industry focus from being very client-led to candidate-led, which the market demands.
“The result is Uniform Education, where our motto is ‘love your candidate, get to know their exact requirements and then match your clients to those candidates’.”
Operating from their headquarters in central London, Uniform Education is currently focused on placing teachers in schools across the capital and the home counties.
However in the coming years they plan to expand across Britain - and expect to bring a host of newly-arrived Irish teachers with them.
“We want to become the agency of choice for Irish candidates looking to come to Britain,” Mr Grace said.
“There is a huge gap in the market for experienced teachers and support staff within British schools. That’s a gap that Irish candidates can help fill and we are best placed to make sure they find the roles that they are looking for.”
He explained: “For all our teachers, whether from Britain, Ireland or further afield, we believe that a simple approach of listening and taking the time to find out exactly what our candidates want will stand both us and them us in good stead for the future, and that’s where our focus will remain.”
Uniform Education will be present at teaching fairs being held across Ireland in 2015 and 2016. For further information click here
