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This role can be worked either as a remote homebased role, or as a hybrid role based in our London office, with London-based colleagues attending the office a minimum of four days per month.
Independent Age is the national charity focused on ending financial hardship in later life. We want every older person to be able to afford to live well.
We stand with older people in financial hardship, offering urgent help today and shaping a fairer, more secure tomorrow. Our Helpline and expert advisers offer free, practical support to older people without enough money to live on. Through our grants programme, we support hundreds of local organisations working with older people across the UK. And we use the knowledge and insight gained from our services and partnerships to highlight the issues experienced by older people in poverty and campaign for change.
We would love to find individuals from all walks of life and diverse backgrounds to join us on this journey.
Responsibilities and Person Specification:
The Stories and Participation Officer is a fundamental cross-organisational role. Working directly with older people in financial hardship, the role will source, capture and collaborate to share stories, advice and insights from older people, whilst maintaining the highest level of stewardship and safeguarding for this group and supporting organisation wide participation activity.
Reporting into the Participation Manager, you will work champion and deliver meaningful involvement and authentic storytelling to ensure that the experiences of older people are at the centre of Independent Age’s work. You will ensure that participation processes maintain and develop our storytelling expertise and follow good-practice in the sector. The role will recruit and induct older people on a low income to our Lived Experience Network, alert them to opportunities to get involved in shaping and informing Independent Age’s work, facilitate two-way engagement, and work with willing members of the network to share their lived experience and insights, including sharing their story on public and private platforms.
You will need exceptional organisational skills and the ability to proactively drive lived experience work and effective storytelling. Strong verbal and interpersonal skills are essential, along with knowledge of best practice in supporting and co-ordinating lived experience participation including online and offline events, groups and meetings to create listening spaces.
For full details on the role and requirements, please review the job description and person specification. If your experience doesn’t align perfectly with all of the criteria in the person specification but you do meet most of them and are excited about the role, we encourage you to apply anyway.
What it’s like to work at Independent Age:
We celebrate diversity at Independent Age and champion the differences that make each of us unique. We actively support and encourage people from a variety of backgrounds, experiences and skill sets to join us and help shape what we do. We aim to attract and retain a wide range of talent and create an environment where everyone can feel safe, protected, welcome and included.
We offer great benefits including 28 days annual leave plus public holidays, a generous pension scheme with life assurance, and fantastic learning and development opportunities. We also offer a number of enhanced leave provisions and benefits.
We know that a good work life balance helps us perform at our best and supports wellbeing. Flexible working hours and hybrid working is standard for all (those contracted to work in the office are required to attend the office a minimum of 4 days per month). But if you need a different form of flexibility, we are always happy to talk flexible working.
With an employee engagement score of 98%, colleagues say Independent Age is a great place to work. You can find out more about what it’s like to work for us on the careers page of our website.
Application Process:
To apply, please submit a CV and a Supporting Statement, detailing how your skills and experience meet the criteria within the Job Description and Person Specification, by visiting our jobs website,
We are committed to ensuring our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible to all. If you require any specific arrangements or adjustments to enable you to fully participate in the recruitment process, such as having the job description in a larger text format or to apply in an alternative format, please get in touch with us via the email address on the ‘Contact Us’ page on our jobs site.
To support our commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion our hiring managers use anonymous shortlisting. Please don’t include your name, photo, or any information that could indicate your gender or age in your CV and supporting statement, and don’t include your name in the title of any documents that you upload. However, please do include all dates of employment.
Independent Age is committed to safeguarding and follows Safer Recruitment practices to ensure we are safeguarding those we work with. We therefore ask that you supply your full work history with explanations for any gaps in the application documents you submit and, if offered the post, we will require two employment references including your current or most recent employer. A Basic Level DBS check will be carried out for the successful candidate.
Closing Date: Sunday 23rd August, 11:59pm
Independent Age is the national charity focused on improving the lives of people facing financial hardship in later life.


The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Who we are
IPSEA (Independent Provider of Special Education Advice) is a national charity working to ensure that children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) receive the educational support they are legally entitled to. Since we were formed in 1983, we have helped to improve the education experience of thousands of children and young people across England. We do this by providing free and independent legal advice and casework support for families, undertaking policy work and delivering training on the SEND legal framework.
What you’ll do
Reports to: Chief Executive
Location: Home-based or Hybrid (with frequent travel for events and meeting with parliamentarians and other stakeholders)
We are seeking a Policy Manager to lead IPSEA's policy and influencing work to achieve positive change for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and their families. Working closely with the Chief Executive, Head of Legal and Training, trustees and colleagues across the organisation, you will set strategic policy priorities and develop evidence-based influencing plans that support IPSEA's mission and long-term objectives.
Drawing on insights from our advice and tribunal services, legal expertise and the experiences of families, you will identify systemic issues within the SEND system and develop policy solutions that improve children and young people's access to the support and education to which they are entitled. You will ensure that IPSEA's policy positions are credible, legally robust and informed by the lived experiences of those we support.
You will lead IPSEA's engagement with government, Parliament and other key decision-makers, identifying opportunities to influence legislation, policy and practice at both national and local level. This includes overseeing responses to consultations, parliamentary inquiries and calls for evidence, as well as preparing briefings and strategic advice to support senior-level engagement and advocacy.
Working collaboratively with colleagues across legal, communications, fundraising and training teams, you will ensure IPSEA's policy, campaigning and public affairs activities are aligned and maximise the organisation's impact. You will also monitor developments across the political, legal and policy landscape, helping IPSEA respond proactively to emerging opportunities and challenges affecting the rights of children and young people with SEND.
This role offers the opportunity to make a real difference as part of a small, friendly, and dedicated team. If you are passionate about helping children and young people with SEND and have the skills and experience needed, we would love to hear from you.
Who are we looking for?
You will have significant experience in a senior policy and campaigning/public affairs role and have good knowledge of local and national government structure including the legislative process.
You the ability to build and maintain relationships with a range of stakeholders including MPs, civil servants, campaigners and parents. You exhibit tact and diplomacy and can be impactful with people of varying levels and experience.
Your research and critical thinking skills enable you to analyse policy and data to produce relevant reports and position papers. You have experience of drafting organisation responses to government consultations and parliamentary calls for evidence.
IPSEA should also reflect the communities we support. We would particularly like to hear from candidates from ethnic minority backgrounds, LGBTQIA+ people, under-served communities and disabled people, as well as those with lived experience of the SEND system, either as a child or as a parent/carer.
What we can offer you
- 5% employer pension contributions
- Healthcare cash plan
- Flexible working arrangements
- 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays plus an additional day off for your birthday (pro-rata if part-time).
To apply
Visit our website to download a recruitment pack and application form.
Deadline for applications: 9am on 7 September 2026.
First-round interviews: on 15 September 2026 in our offices in Takeley, Essex, with second-round interviews (online) on 18 September 2026.
NO AGENCIES PLEASE.
We help children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) get the education they are entitled to by law


The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Actively Interviewing
This organisation is scheduling interviews as applications come in. They're ready to hire as soon as they find the right person. Don't miss your opportunity, apply now!
Senior Software Engineer (AI/ML)
Remote (UK-based) | Full-time | Flexible working | salary £82,409 + benefits including 4.5-day week and 11% employer pension
Do your best work, for the right reasons.
We're looking for a Senior Software Engineer (AI/ML) to help us build beautifully simple, high-impact digital products that support teachers and improve outcomes for pupils across the UK.
Oak is a fully remote, mission-driven organisation offering high levels of flexibility, autonomy, and purpose. We're 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.
Our culture has been independently recognised through:
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Flexa verified (93% overall score, including 95% for working hours and 97% for role modelling)
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Escape the City's Top 1% Employers – based on anonymous colleague reviews of culture, development, and impact
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Investors in People Gold - through external accreditation and colleague feedback
💡 About the Role
We are looking for an experienced Senior Software Engineer (AI/ML) to join our AI Platform team.
Oak's AI Platform team builds and maintains our core AI infrastructure, including shared services, prompt libraries and reusable pipelines. This is essential in enabling our product squads to deliver safe, effective and scalable AI features that support teachers and pupils across the UK.
You'll take a leading role in shaping Oak's AI Platform, contributing towards the technical direction for reliable, safe and scalable AI capabilities. You'll work with product squads to turn ambiguous problems into robust solutions, provide technical guidance and mentorship to engineers, and help establish the patterns, tooling and standards that enable responsible AI delivery across Oak.
You'll work across the boundary between machine learning and software engineering: taking the same ownership of production reliability, testing and developer experience as other senior engineers on the team, while keeping safety and responsible AI at the centre of what you build.
In this role, you may work on:
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Enhancing Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines, including context chunking, prompt construction and implementing strategies to improve relevance and accuracy.
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Optimising embedding and vector similarity systems through semantic search, clustering, filtering logic and dimensionality reduction techniques.
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Supporting model evaluation and safety tooling, such as automated test harnesses, hallucination detection, content moderation and input guardrails.
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Contributing to model fine-tuning, prompting and deployment, with a focus on balancing performance, accuracy and cost-effectiveness.
🔧 What You'll Be Doing
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Lead the continuous improvement of Oak's machine learning models and systems, from prototype through to production at scale.
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Develop and maintain highly performant ed-tech applications that are secure, scalable, highly available and accessible to the widest number of users, meeting Government Digital Service standards.
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Be an expert authority within the engineering team on the architecture, code base and AI/ML best practices, providing mentorship to less experienced colleagues.
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Design and coordinate the integration of AI/ML models with existing Oak systems, ensuring robust model serving and end-to-end testing.
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Take responsibility for the operation and reliability of production services you build — monitoring performance, resolving issues, and addressing capacity constraints before they affect users.
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Lead the implementation of new processes or tools that improve the user or developer experience.
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As a member of the Oak team, contribute to the planning and culture of the organisation.
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Work in cross-functional and product-oriented squads with colleagues from across the organisation, as required.
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Deputise for more senior colleagues and take on other general responsibilities as required.
🌱 What We're Looking For
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5+ years' experience leading the continuous improvement of machine learning models and systems in production, alongside significant experience architecting and building high-performing web applications with modern JavaScript libraries and tools.
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Extensive knowledge of machine learning frameworks and cloud-based machine learning tools, with experience moving models from development to production.
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Understanding of machine learning ethics, fairness frameworks and responsible AI principles, including bias detection and privacy-preserving data practices.
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Experience building evaluation frameworks and automated test harnesses for AI/ML systems from scratch. Including techniques for detecting hallucinations, measuring output quality, and monitoring model performance and safety in production.
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Proven experience proposing and implementing new processes or tools that improve developer experience and lead to higher quality products.
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Experience collaborating with product teams to lead the development of high-quality, high-impact products, with great communication and collaborative skills.
💛 Our Benefits
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25 days annual leave, plus one extra day for each year of service (up to 28)
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Additional Oak closure days over Christmas/New Year
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11% employer pension contribution (with no minimum employee contribution)
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A 36-hour working week, with half-days on Fridays or every other Friday off
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Fully remote working — we'll support your home set-up and offer coworking options if preferred
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Twice-yearly in-person offsites to collaborate, connect, and have fun
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A culture that genuinely supports flexibility, autonomy, and trust
🌈 Inclusion and Belonging
We believe diverse teams build better products. We warmly welcome applicants from all backgrounds, particularly those who are underrepresented in the tech and education sectors.
If you're from an underrepresented group, there's a good chance you're discounting yourself before you've even started. That's more common than you'd think, and it means we may miss out on brilliant people. If you're excited by this role but don't meet every requirement, please apply anyway.
We use the Applied platform to help reduce bias in our hiring process. Answers are anonymised and reviewed by a panel of humans.
📌 Key Info
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Location: Remote, but you must be based in the UK with the legal right to work here
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Sponsorship: Unfortunately, we're unable to offer visa sponsorship at this time
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Closing date: We'll be reviewing applications as they come in and may close the role early
If this sounds like the kind of role and team where you could do your life's best work, we'd love to hear from you.
Next steps
You'll answer a few admin questions and some questions related to your day-to-day job. Your answers will go through our sift process: all answers will be anonymised, randomised, and then reviewed by a panel of reviewers (real humans), so it's your thinking that gets assessed, not your CV.
If you're shortlisted, we'll invite you to interview across three stages. We're aiming to start interviews the week beginning 17th August 2026.
Stage 1: An introductory call to learn more about your skills and experience, and a chance for you to ask us about the role. This takes about 30 minutes.
Stage 2: A technical interview over Zoom, combining a hands-on pairing session or technical walk-through, followed by some technical interview questions. This takes around two hours.
Stage 3: A collaboration interview, focused on how you work with both engineering and non-engineering colleagues. This takes about 1 hour.
We love giving feedback, so at the end of the application process, we'll share our assessment of your performance.
We are receiving excellent responses to our job advertisements. This may lead us to close the role early, so if you are considering applying, don't leave it too long to avoid missing out.
We are an equal opportunity employer.
We are committed to a policy of Equal Employment Opportunity and are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status, or race, or is disadvantaged by conditions or requirements which cannot be shown to be justifiable.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.