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Leaving education can be one of the hardest career decisions someone makes.
For many teachers and education professionals, the choice isn’t caused by a loss of care for learners or education. Often, the opposite is true. They still care deeply about the sector, but the demands of their role no longer feel sustainable. They may want more time for their family, greater choice over how and where they work, or a clearer path for professional growth.
The decision can also bring a mix of relief, guilt and uncertainty. Teaching is more than a job for many people. It becomes part of their identity. Leaving can feel as though they’re walking away from their pupils, colleagues or original purpose, even when they know that staying is affecting their wellbeing.
That emotional weight is one of the reasons career change from education often feels harder than expected.
Workload is one of the most common reasons teachers consider leaving the classroom. The Department for Education’s 2025 Working Lives of Teachers and Leaders survey found that teachers reported working an average of 55.5 hours during the reference week.
Those hours don’t only include teaching. They include planning, marking, reporting, meetings, safeguarding responsibilities, communication with families and the administration that keeps growing around the role. A teacher’s working day rarely finishes when pupils leave the classroom.
Work and life balance can also be difficult to achieve. Although school holidays may look attractive from the outside, teachers often have limited freedom over when they take leave. Flexible and remote working options are also less common than they are across many corporate roles.
Research reviewed by the Education Endowment Foundation found that heavier workloads are consistently connected with higher staff turnover. Its work on teacher retention points towards manageable workloads, flexible working, supportive leadership and positive school cultures as important factors in helping people remain in the profession.
Career progression can be another challenge. Traditional routes often lead towards subject leadership, pastoral leadership, deputy headship or headship. These paths are right for some people, but not everyone wants to manage a school, move away from classroom practice or take on a role with even greater pressure.
An experienced teacher may therefore reach a point where they have developed a wide range of valuable skills but can’t see a clear next step that fits their life, strengths and ambitions.
The changing needs of pupils are also adding to the pressure felt across schools.
Department for Education statistics show that the number of pupils in England with an Education, Health and Care plan increased to around 483,000 in 2025. This represented an increase of 11.1 per cent in one year, and the number had doubled since 2016. The number of pupils receiving SEN support had also increased by almost 30 per cent since 2016.
By 2026, 19.4 per cent of primary pupils and 17.6 per cent of secondary pupils had an Education, Health and Care plan or were receiving SEN support.
These numbers don’t suggest that pupils with additional needs are the problem. They show that schools are supporting a much wider range of needs, often while facing pressure around funding, staffing, specialist support and access to external services.
Teachers want to support every learner well. When the resources, training or time aren’t available, the gap between the support they want to provide and the support they’re able to provide can become emotionally draining.
For some education professionals, leaving is therefore not about caring less. It’s about recognising that the current way of working is no longer healthy or sustainable for them.
Some people leaving education move into charities, local government, universities, professional bodies or other public sector organisations. Others explore roles within learning and development, training, publishing or consultancy.
Many teachers who still feel strongly connected to education begin looking at EdTech.
EdTech stands for education technology. The term covers companies that create products, platforms and services for schools, universities, training providers, teachers, learners and families. It can include learning platforms, assessment tools, school management systems, curriculum resources, assistive technology and tools that support communication, administration or professional development.
For someone leaving the classroom, EdTech can seem like a way to continue improving education while working in a different environment. They can stay close to learners and educators without carrying the same responsibilities they held within a school.
The sector also needs people who understand education from the inside.
Technology knowledge is important, but building a successful education product requires more than technical skill. Companies need to understand how teachers work, how schools make decisions, what learners need and why a product that looks strong on paper may not work within a real classroom.
Education professionals can bring that context. They understand pedagogy, curriculum, learner engagement, safeguarding, school culture and the pressures faced by educators. They can help companies ask better questions, design more useful products and communicate with education customers in a credible way.
The problem is that education experience and EdTech job descriptions often use different language.
A teacher may have led a curriculum change, introduced a new digital platform, trained colleagues and tracked its impact. Within a school, they may simply describe this as part of their teaching role. An EdTech employer might recognise the same experience as implementation, product adoption, change management, training and stakeholder engagement.
A teacher may have managed relationships with pupils, families, colleagues, senior leaders and external organisations. A company might describe this as account management, customer success or stakeholder management.
Planning lessons can involve analysing needs, designing learning experiences, adapting content, managing deadlines and measuring outcomes. Those skills may connect with learning design, content, product, training or project management roles.
The skills are already there, but the language surrounding them has changed.
This is why telling someone to “focus on their transferable skills” isn’t always enough. People need to understand which skills are relevant to a specific role, how employers describe them and what evidence will make those skills credible.
EdTech is a sector, not one type of job.
It includes roles across customer success, implementation, learning design, training, sales, partnerships, account management, product, marketing, content and operations.
Someone may know that they want to work in EdTech but have little idea which part of the sector suits them. This can lead to a very broad search, with applications being sent for completely different roles.
A person might apply for customer success, product management, instructional design and sales positions at the same time. These roles require different experience, language and evidence. A general CV that tries to cover all four is unlikely to present a clear story.
Choosing a direction can therefore feel restrictive, but it usually makes a career search stronger. It gives the person a clearer target, helps them identify gaps and allows them to explain why they’re suited to a particular area of work.
This clarity doesn’t always arrive quickly. It can take months of research, conversations and reflection. Without guidance, some people spend years trying to understand the sector through trial and error.
A common pattern appears across many successful career changes. The person rarely moves straight from deciding to leave teaching into their ideal EdTech position.
One former teacher featured in a published career case study spent 13 years in the classroom before moving into customer success for an EdTech company. Her classroom experience was relevant, but she still had to learn how customer success worked and how to present herself for a commercial environment.
Another former teacher described initially applying for many different roles without a clear plan. The result was a large number of applications and very few responses. After becoming more focused, learning the language of customer success and building a clearer strategy, she secured a customer success role despite starting without software experience or an established network.
RecruitHer has also shared the story of an educator whose move into EdTech took several stages. Rather than treating the first job outside the classroom as the final destination, they used each step to build sector knowledge, confidence and commercial experience. Over time, that journey led to an EdTech consultancy career.
These examples matter because they challenge the idea that a successful transition should happen quickly or follow a perfectly straight line.
Sometimes the first move is a bridge role. It may help someone learn the sector, build new evidence and understand where they want to go next. A bridge role isn’t a failure or a step backwards. It can be a practical part of building a new career.
Education recruitment often follows a familiar structure. Candidates complete an application form, deliver a lesson or presentation and attend an interview.
EdTech companies may use a very different process. There may be an introductory recruiter call, interviews with several team members, a task, a presentation, a role play and a final conversation with a founder or senior leader.
Candidates may be asked about commercial outcomes, customer retention, product adoption, revenue, project delivery or data. These questions can feel unfamiliar, even when the candidate has relevant examples from education.
A teacher may have persuaded colleagues to use a new system, supported families through difficult situations or improved pupil engagement. However, they may struggle to explain those examples using the language expected by a company.
Interview preparation is therefore not about inventing new experience. It’s about learning how to communicate existing experience within a different setting.
Research should be the starting point, not sending applications.
Read job descriptions and look for patterns. Notice which skills appear repeatedly, what results employers expect and which words are used to describe the work. Compare roles carefully rather than relying only on their titles, as the same job title can mean different things across different companies.
Speak with people already working in the sector. Ask what their day involves, how their team measures success and what they wish they had understood before joining EdTech. These conversations should be used for learning rather than immediately asking for a job.
AI tools can also support the research process. They can help compare job descriptions, explain unfamiliar terms and identify possible connections between education experience and new roles. However, AI shouldn’t decide a person’s career direction or produce a CV filled with claims they can’t support. It works best as a research and thinking tool.
Once a target role is clearer, candidates can begin building evidence. This could mean completing relevant training, volunteering on a project, writing about an education product, attending sector events or gaining more experience with digital tools.
The aim isn’t to collect as many courses as possible. It’s to close specific gaps and show genuine interest in the work.
Career change involves more than practical tasks. It also affects confidence and identity.
People may question whether they’re making the right choice, whether their experience is relevant and whether an employer will take them seriously. Rejection can make that uncertainty worse, especially when they don’t understand why an application wasn’t successful.
Support from family, friends and peers can make a big difference. It gives people space to talk through the emotional side of leaving a familiar career.
Professional support can provide something different. A recruiter, career coach or transition programme can help someone understand the market, choose a direction and test whether their plan is realistic.
A good career professional shouldn’t simply agree with every idea. They should challenge assumptions, point out gaps and explain where the person’s experience is genuinely strong. They can also help someone recognise when they’re applying for roles that don’t match their current evidence.
That outside view can save time, but it can also provide reassurance. Career changers often need a sounding board who understands both where they’ve come from and where they’re trying to go.
Moving from education into EdTech can feel like starting from the beginning, but that isn’t what’s happening.
You’re taking years of knowledge, leadership, communication, problem solving and care into a new environment. The challenge is learning how that environment works and how to explain the value you bring.
The process may take longer than you hoped. Your first move may not be your final destination. You may need to develop some new skills, change your CV several times and become more comfortable talking about your impact.
None of that removes the value of your experience.
At RecruitHer, we support education professionals who want to move into EdTech or take their next step within the sector. Our career strategy and coaching sessions help people explore their options, identify and explain their transferable skills, prepare for applications and create a more focused plan.
RecruitHer’s founder, Emilia, is a former teacher who moved into EdTech and now works as an EdTech recruiter and career coach. She understands both the personal uncertainty of career change and the expectations of employers hiring within the sector.
If you’re exploring a move from education into EdTech and need clear, honest support, please get in touch.
Common reasons include workload, limited flexibility, a lack of clear progression and growing pressure around pupils’ additional needs. The Department for Education’s 2025 Working Lives of Teachers and Leaders survey found that teachers reported working an average of 55.5 hours during the reference week. For many people, leaving is not about caring less. It is about finding a way of working that is sustainable.
EdTech lets people stay connected to education while working in a different environment. The sector also needs people who understand education from the inside, including how teachers work, how schools make decisions and what learners need.
Not always. One former teacher described in this article secured a customer success role despite starting without software experience or an established network, after becoming more focused, learning the language of customer success and building a clearer strategy. What matters is showing which of your skills are relevant to a specific role and backing them up with evidence.
EdTech includes roles in customer success, implementation, learning design, training, sales, partnerships, account management, product, marketing, content and operations. Each needs different experience and language, so it usually works better to choose a direction rather than applying for everything with the same CV.
Start with research rather than applications. Read job descriptions and look for patterns, speak with people already working in the sector, and then build evidence for your target role through training, projects, writing or sector events.
Not necessarily. Sometimes the first move is a bridge role that helps you learn the sector, build new evidence and understand where you want to go next. That is a practical part of building a new career, not a step backwards.
If you are exploring a move from education into EdTech and want a clearer, more focused plan, book a 10-minute call with Emilia or find out more about RecruitHer’s career advisory services.
Emilia Kruszewska is the founder and CEO of RecruitHer, a specialist recruitment and career strategy business for the education and EdTech sector. A former educator and EdTech sales leader, she built and ran her own education business for seven years before selling it to a competitor. Today she partners with founders and hiring managers to build high impact EdTech teams, and helps educators and EdTech professionals position their experience for their next move. You can connect with Emilia on LinkedIn.
