School IT technician

A school IT technician keeps the school’s computers, network and classroom technology working. The job covers everything from fixing a projector before period one to setting up laptops for a new intake, managing user accounts and backing up data. Schools also rely on their IT staff to run the web filtering and monitoring that safeguarding guidance requires, so the job carries safeguarding duties as well as technical ones. Posts are usually on the NJC pay spine, and many are all-year because the big jobs happen in the holidays.

What a normal week looks like

The job is reactive and varied. A typical week mixes:

• fault calls from classrooms (a frozen board, a printer, a lost password)
• setting up and repairing laptops, tablets and Chromebooks
• managing accounts in Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace and the school’s network
• installing software and updates
• helping staff with the MIS, online platforms and video calls
• supporting the exams office during online and on-screen assessments

In a small primary you may be the only IT person, possibly shared with other schools or employed through a support contract. In a large secondary you might be one of a team led by a network manager. Trusts often run a central IT team that covers several schools, with technicians assigned to sites.

Many technicians like the variety and the fact that fixing something has an immediate effect on a lesson. The interruptions are the hard part. Urgent requests come from every direction, and finishing project work during term can be difficult.

Filtering, monitoring and safeguarding

The Department for Education’s filtering and monitoring standards, which sit alongside Keeping Children Safe in Education, expect schools to block harmful content, monitor what pupils do on school devices and networks, and review the setup at least annually. The designated safeguarding lead holds responsibility for acting on concerns, but IT staff usually configure the systems, run the reports and flag what they see.

That puts technicians close to safeguarding. You may spot a search or a message that suggests a pupil is at risk, and you need to know how to pass it to the designated safeguarding lead straight away. Schools train IT staff on this, and IT staff have the same enhanced DBS check with the children’s barred list as other school staff.

Cyber security is part of the job too. Schools are targets for phishing and ransomware, and the DfE’s digital standards cover backups, accounts and access controls.

Qualifications and routes in

There is no single required qualification. Employers ask for practical experience with Windows, networking basics, Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, and hardware repair. Vendor certifications (Microsoft, CompTIA, Cisco) help for more senior posts. Network manager roles expect solid experience with servers, wireless networks, firewalls and cloud services.

Apprenticeships are a common way in. Schools and trusts recruit IT support apprentices who learn on the job while studying, and some of those apprentices stay on as technicians. Apprenticeships in the public sector explains how the pay and training work. If you are new to schools, getting a school job with no experience covers how school applications differ from private sector ones.

Pay

Maintained schools and most academies pay IT staff on the NJC pay spine. For 2026/27 the spine runs from £25,614 at SCP 3 to £56,293 at SCP 43 for a full-time, all-year post. The grade depends on the school’s job evaluation: a junior technician will sit low on the spine, while a network manager running a team across several schools will sit much higher. The NJC pay spine guide lists every point.

Apprentices may be paid the apprentice minimum wage, which is £8.00 an hour from 1 April 2026 for those under 19 or in the first year, though many schools pay more.

If a post is term-time only, the advertised full-time salary is pro rata. Check the number of contract weeks, because an IT post with extra summer weeks will be paid more than a straight term-time contract on the same grade. The take-home pay calculator shows what that comes to after tax and pension.

Hours, leave and pension

Full-time support staff on Green Book terms work 37 hours a week. All-year IT staff take their leave in the school holidays, often with restrictions on the first and last weeks of the summer when the most work is planned. The Green Book minimum is 23 days’ leave a year, rising to 26 after five years’ continuous service, plus 8 public holidays and 2 extra-statutory days. Many councils and trusts give more.

Some work outside normal hours comes with the job: a server upgrade over a weekend, an evening parents’ event, or an early start when the network fails. Ask how that time is paid or given back. Most school IT staff join the Local Government Pension Scheme; in 2026/27 the main section charges 5.8 per cent on pay from £18,401 to £29,000 and 6.5 per cent from £29,001 to £47,300.

Moving up

The usual progression is technician, senior technician, network manager, then a trust-wide IT or digital lead. Some technicians move across to data management, which uses many of the same systems, or to IT roles in councils or the NHS. School experience with filtering, device management and cloud migrations transfers well to other public bodies.