Ormiston Academies Trust Teacher Pay (2026/27)

Most pages in this section exist because a trust does something unusual with pay — an above-scale premium, a proposed pension change, a documented directed-time dispute. Ormiston Academies Trust is a useful entry precisely because none of that applies here, and it would be dishonest to invent a story where the real one is simpler: OAT follows the national pay framework, and says so itself. That does not make it a page-worth-skipping trust. It makes it a trust worth understanding on its own terms — what its published pay policy actually commits to, what its live job adverts actually pay, and what genuinely distinguishes it from the handful of trusts that do set their own rates.

This page is built from OAT's own Teachers' Pay Policy — a document published by Ormiston Horizon Academy, one of the trust's member academies, as the trust-mandated template that each academy's governing body then applies locally — from the trust's careers pages, from live vacancy adverts on Teaching Vacancies and mynewterm, and from the Department for Education's Get Information About Schools register and Companies House filings. Where a figure is dated or could not be verified, that is stated rather than smoothed over.

What Ormiston Academies Trust actually is

Ormiston Academies Trust is one of the oldest and largest not-for-profit multi-academy trusts in England, incorporated in 2009 as the academy-sponsoring arm of the older Ormiston Trust charity — established in memory of Fiona Ormiston Murray, who died in 1969. It runs 45 academies: 32 secondary, 7 primary and 6 special, alternative-provision or free-school settings, educating around 35,000 pupils with a workforce of more than 5,000 staff.

Geographically, OAT is concentrated rather than evenly spread. Its largest regional presence is the East of England, with 18 academies, followed by the West Midlands, with 13. The remaining academies sit in smaller clusters across other English regions, including Lowestoft, the Isle of Wight, Grimsby and Runcorn. That concentration matters in the same way it does for any regional trust: most OAT teachers are competing against maintained schools and other trusts in the same one or two labour markets, not against a single national comparator.

On inspection outcomes, the trust's profile is respectable for a network this size and this varied: of the 45 academies, 1 is rated Outstanding, 35 Good, 6 Requires Improvement and none Inadequate, with 3 not yet inspected under the current framework — around 80 per cent Good or better. That is not evidence about pay or working conditions, but it is a reasonable proxy for a trust that is, on the whole, running functional schools rather than firefighting a large number of struggling ones.

The headline: STPCD, not a bespoke scale

The single most important fact on this page is one OAT states about itself. Section 6.1 of its Teachers' Pay Policy reads: "In this academy, all teaching staff are employed in accordance with the provisions of the School Teachers Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD). In reviewing pay scales in the future, the Governing Body will have regard to the pay ranges contained within the STPCD or other relevant DfE documentation." The trust's own careers page reinforces the same point in different words, describing "nationally agreed terms and conditions" as part of the offer.

That is a materially different starting point from the handful of large trusts covered elsewhere on this site. United Learning replaces M1–M6 and U1–U3 with its own PT and EPT bands, averaging 5 per cent above national rates. Harris Federation keeps the national bands but adds a flat £1,500–£2,000 allowance on top. OAT does neither. Its pay policy uses the STPCD's own point names — M1 to M6, U1 to U3, TLR1 to TLR3, the SEN allowance, the Leading Practitioner range and the Leadership Group spine — and, as far as the evidence goes, populates them with the STPCD's own cash values rather than an OAT-specific premium.

The practical implication for anyone comparing an OAT offer against a maintained school on the same STPCD point, in the same region, is that the salary should be identical. The interesting part of an OAT profile, in other words, is not "does it pay more" — it does not appear to — but how the trust's own pay policy actually works in practice, because that policy does contain genuine detail worth understanding before you accept a post.

Inside OAT's own Teachers' Pay Policy

Unlike several large trusts covered on this site, OAT does publish a full Teachers' Pay Policy — the copy located for this page was published by Ormiston Horizon Academy as the trust's "OAT Mandatory" template, meaning every academy is required to adopt it and then apply it through its own governing body. It was authored by the trust's HR lead, consulted with seven recognised trade unions — ASCL, GMB, NAHT, NASUWT, NEU, Unison and Unite — and carries the status "Consulted not agreed", released in January 2019 with a next review date of October 2020. That is genuinely dated; treat the structure it describes as reliable and the cash figures in its pay appendix, dated 1 September 2020, as historic rather than current.

With that caveat in place, the structure itself is informative. The pay appendix sets out the Main Pay Range (M1–M6), the Upper Pay Range (U1–U3), a full 18-point Leading Practitioner spine, the complete national L1–L43 Leadership Group spine, a six-point Unqualified Teacher scale, and TLR and SEN allowance ranges — all matching the shape and (for that pay year) the cash values of the national STPCD document rather than introducing separate OAT figures. The one place local discretion clearly operates is in which points within those ranges get used for a given post:

• TLR1 was set at a single fixed value (£8,291 in the 2020 appendix) rather than spanning the full national TLR1 range — a choice an individual academy governing body makes, not a trust-wide rate.
• TLR2 used the full national spread of six sub-points (2a to 2f, £2,873 to £6,829 in the same appendix), giving heads of department and similar post-holders more graduated options than the TLR1 approach.
• Leading Practitioner and Leadership Group posts are each paid on a five-point sub-scale drawn from within the full national spine, with the specific points set post by post according to responsibility — the same approach United Learning and Harris both use for their own leadership pay, but built on the national spine rather than a bespoke one.
• Recruitment and retention payments have no fixed time limit and can, in the policy's words, take a non-cash form such as "relocation expenses, health care, gym membership, childcare provision" where a governing body judges that more useful than cash.

Two things are worth taking from this. First, OAT's pay policy is a genuine, detailed document — considerably more substantial than the many large trusts (Harris Federation among them) that publish no pay policy at all. Second, the decisions it delegates are almost entirely about which post gets which point, made by each academy's own Pay Committee of at least three governors, rather than about a trust-wide rate that differs from STPCD. If you want to know your own starting point, the policy tells you the right question to ask — which specific TLR sub-point or leadership spine point your post carries — rather than giving you the answer directly.

How pay progression actually works

OAT's careers page lists "Automatic pay progression" among its stated benefits, and the pay policy gives that some real backing — more than the phrase alone might suggest, and with more conditions attached than "automatic" implies.

Appeals go first to an informal discussion with the decision-maker within ten working days, then to a formal written appeal and hearing, and finally — if unresolved — to a panel of three governors not involved in the original decision. That panel's decision is final, with no further route through the staff grievance procedure. It is a reasonably standard, STPCD-consistent process rather than anything distinctive to OAT, which is itself worth knowing: there is no OAT-specific escalation route beyond what the national framework already provides.

What live job adverts actually say

The most reliable evidence of current OAT pay is a live vacancy, because it has to state a real figure for a real post. A sample of OAT adverts current at the time of writing shows the pattern this page describes throughout: recognisable STPCD terminology and STPCD-shaped figures, not a distinct OAT band.

Several other OAT teaching posts outside London have been advertised in the region of £32,916 to £51,048 for the Main and Upper Pay Range combined — a recognisable national STPCD spread rather than an enhanced figure. For orientation, this site's illustrative 2026/27 national figures put M1 at £34,069 and M6 at £46,940, with U3 at £52,835; the Leadership Group range nationally runs from £53,586 to £148,829. The advertised figures above sit close to, but in most cases a little below, those current national points — consistent with adverts having been drafted against the STPCD pay year in force when they were published rather than the newest one, which is exactly why you should always check the scale in force for the year your post actually starts rather than relying on any figure printed on this page.

Pension and the rest of the package

OAT's careers page describes "generous pension and life cover" without stating the scheme by name, which is standard careers-page brevity rather than anything to be suspicious of. For teaching staff, the default and expected position is the Teachers' Pension Scheme on ordinary terms, since academies have no general power to remove teachers from it, and we found no evidence — no news reporting, no union alert, no trust announcement — of any proposed alternative arrangement. That is a meaningful point of reassurance given that United Learning did develop and then abandon a defined-contribution alternative to the TPS during 2025 after a union dispute. Nothing comparable appears to have happened, or to have been proposed, at OAT. Confirm it in writing at offer stage regardless, as you should with any employer.

Beyond pay and pension, OAT's own published benefits list includes:

• Flexible working arrangements, stated as a specific benefit rather than a vague aspiration.
• Trust-wide INSET and staff development days, in addition to each academy's own scheduled training days, plus access to national conferences.
• Career-advancing initiatives named specifically as National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) and apprenticeships, alongside what the trust describes as "bespoke career pathways" and leadership development opportunities.
• Health and wellbeing programmes, including a counselling service and a free, confidential 24/7 legal, tax and health helpline.
• Retail and travel discounts, of the kind common across the sector.

None of this is unusual for a large trust, but it is a genuine, itemised list rather than a single vague line about "a great place to work," and each item is at least specific enough to ask about directly at interview.

Teacher training and the NIoT partnership

Before researching this page, it looked plausible that OAT might hold a distinctive university partnership for teacher training or research, in the way some trusts do. That turned out not to be the current position, and it is worth correcting rather than repeating the assumption. OAT's own initial teacher training route — Ormiston Teacher Training — is a school-centred initial teacher training (SCITT) programme, and its delivery partner is the National Institute of Teaching (NIoT), one of the four Department for Education-backed teaching-school hubs created to raise the standard of initial teacher training and early-career development nationally. It is not a university partnership, and the DfE-backed NIoT relationship is a different — arguably more centrally credentialled — kind of arrangement than a single university link.

This matters mainly to prospective trainees rather than to qualified teachers already weighing up a post, since the SCITT route concerns entry into the profession rather than pay or progression once qualified. But it is a genuine, current, checkable fact about the trust's investment in its training pipeline, and it is more current and more specific than the vaguer "excellent CPD" claims that appear on most trust careers pages.

What we could not verify

Being explicit about the gaps in the public record matters as much here as the facts that are well evidenced, particularly because several sources that would normally help build a fuller picture of any large trust were not accessible during this research.

• Well evidenced: that OAT applies STPCD pay ranges rather than a bespoke scale, from the trust's own Teachers' Pay Policy (section 6.1) and its careers page's "nationally agreed terms and conditions" wording.
• Well evidenced: the trust's size, academy count, pupil numbers, regional spread and Ofsted profile, corroborated across the trust's own site and the DfE's Get Information About Schools register.
• Well evidenced: the structure and progression process set out in the published Teachers' Pay Policy, including the seven-union consultation list and the appeals procedure.
• Well evidenced: that Ormiston Teacher Training partners with the National Institute of Teaching rather than a university.

• Not found: a current, post-2020 version of the Teachers' Pay Policy with up-to-date cash figures. The copy located is dated January 2019 with a pay appendix from September 2020.
• Not accessible: Glassdoor and Indeed employee review data for the trust — both sites blocked automated retrieval during this research, so no recommendation percentage or work-life balance score can be reported here.
• Not extracted: chief executive pay, total staff costs and pension-fund detail from the trust's full statutory accounts for the year to 31 August 2025, filed with Companies House on 20 May 2026 — an 87-page document that could not be parsed as part of this research.
• Not found: any reported strike action, formal pay dispute, ballot or redundancy controversy specifically involving OAT, in the sources checked. Treat this as an absence of evidence rather than a confirmed clean record, and ask directly at interview or via a recognised union rep.

OAT versus the above-scale trusts

It is tempting to read "follows STPCD" as a straightforward loss against a trust that pays more. The comparison is more useful when set out in full, because the trusts that do pay above scale generally attach something to that premium.

Neither position is objectively better. A teacher who wants the largest achievable gross salary and is willing to scrutinise the conditions attached to it has good reason to look at an above-scale trust first. A teacher who values the predictability of a national framework, and the certainty that comes from a well-understood national union position, is not settling for less by choosing a trust like OAT — they are making a different, entirely defensible trade-off. The academy trust pay overview sets out that wider choice, and our take-home pay calculator will convert any of the figures on this page into a monthly net amount.

What changes under the 2026 Act

Under the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026, academies will be required to have regard to the STPCD and to meet a statutory minimum pay floor set by reference to it, with the School Teachers' Review Body's remit extended to cover academies for the first time. The timing is widely misreported: Section 59 and Schedule 3 commenced on 29 June 2026, which gives the Secretary of State the power to make a minimum remuneration order. Academies are only actually bound once that order is made, and the Department for Education has said this will be no earlier than September 2026; no order had been made at the time of writing. The September 2027 date often quoted alongside this Act belongs to a separate provision — QTS becoming a requirement in academies — not to the pay floor.

For a trust like OAT, the honest answer is that very little should change. A trust already applying STPCD pay ranges directly is, by construction, already compliant with a floor set by reference to those same ranges. If anything, the legislation narrows the gap between OAT and the handful of trusts that currently pay a differential, by removing whatever residual downside risk exists in academy employment relative to a maintained school. The more interesting open question, as on every trust profile on this site, is how strongly "have regard to" the whole of the STPCD — including its conditions provisions, not just its pay ranges — will be interpreted in practice, which is not yet settled and is likely to be worked out through statutory guidance rather than the Act itself.

How to verify OAT pay yourself

Everything above is a snapshot built from public documents, several of which are now some years old. Before accepting any post, check the position for the specific academy and role.

• Ask for the current Teachers' Pay Policy. The only publicly located copy is dated 2019/2020; request the live version and check its review date and pay appendix.
• Ask which specific point you are being offered — not the range. "M1 – UPS 3" or "L8 – L14" on an advert covers tens of thousands of pounds and tells you nothing about your own salary.
• Ask which TLR sub-point applies, if the post carries a TLR. OAT's own policy shows academies choosing specific sub-points (e.g. TLR2a through 2f) rather than a single trust-wide figure, so the exact sub-point is an academy-level decision worth confirming in writing.
• Confirm the pension in writing. The expected position is standard Teachers' Pension Scheme membership; get it confirmed rather than assumed.
• Check a live vacancy for the specific academy and pay year. Adverts on Teaching Vacancies and mynewterm quote real figures for real posts, which is more current than any policy document, including this one.
• Ask whether there is a recognised union representative at the academy. OAT's pay policy was consulted with seven unions at trust level — ASCL, GMB, NAHT, NASUWT, NEU, Unison and Unite — so whichever you belong to has standing; whether it is active at your specific academy is a separate, worthwhile question.
• Ask about the academy's own appraisal and pay-progression timetable — the trust policy sets a 31 October deadline for Upper Pay Range requests and a 31 October completion date for pay reviews, and it is worth confirming your academy follows the same dates.

Model what any of these figures means in take-home terms with our take-home pay calculator before treating any gross number, on this page or in an advert, as a reason to move.