I wouldn't bother :( - IT Program Manager Pearson Employee Review

1.0
Apr 27, 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

There is 'some' flexibility to manage your own workload. There are still some really great people left you might be lucky enough to work with.

Cons

1. Reorganisations are common place, and happen almost every few months now. 2. Pay is laughable, it averages about 30-40% below the market average (The same role in another awarding body like C&G or AQA pays at least £5k more per year!) 3. Teams are being 'outsourced' left right and centre, mad redundant in London then recreated in significantly cheaper areas (Such as South Yorkshire, or Manilla) 4. The people with the loudest voices are often the ones that get the best deals, if you end up in a team where your manager doesn't have a 'voice' then don't expect a decent pay rise/bonus/praise for good work or a job well done 5. 2016 pay rise was 1%. Bonus was 0 because the finance team over estimated our financial targets, not by 5-10% but by a massive 25%! As a result of THEIR incompetence the entire company lost out on a bonus. 6. After the debacle in 2016 over finance targets we were told that this year would be different and the targets were 'Much lower', we still missed them massively...... Yet our CEO was given more than £345,000 (44% of his annual base salary) whilst some in the business got nothing whatsoever even though they may have 'Met' or 'Exceeded' expectations 7. 2017 pay rise was 2% (Below the current rate of inflation at the time) despite being told all that 2017 would see ‘inflation beating pay rises’ 8. If you apply for a new role within the company, you are restricted to a 10% pay rise rule – This means that if you are on £40k per year, and the salary for the new role is £45-£50k, the most you could get would be £44k. However, if the role is offered to someone external, the MINIMUM they would get is £45k 9. If you are in a position of responsibility then you will be expected to work outside of your core hours, this is absolutely expected and your manager will make your life hell if you try to only work your contracted hours 10. If you’re asked to travel for work (Between offices in the UK, overseas etc.) you are expected to travel on your own time, e.g. if you are asked to go to Manchester from London, you will be expected to travel either at 6am (train) and start work when you arrive in the office, or if you are staying overnight you will be expected to work the full day in London then travel out of hours, the same is true when you are returning 11. NOBODY has any confidence in John Fallon, in 5 years as CEO we have had 4 profit warning; our share price has been as high as £15.50 per share but under him it’s barely able to get above £6.20 now 12. The company is not willing to invest in its products, instead it brings in 3rd party companies to build a basic platform and then we have to find a way to make it work, systems like examWizard or ResultsPlus haven’t been funded for years and they’re now planning to shut down ResultPlus Direct (this is the student results access portal) because ‘it’s not that popular’. IT’S NOT POPULAR BECAUSE YOU WON’T INVEST IN IT! I could write a dozen more points to highlight why this is the last place you should work, but what’s the point!? This is a company that lost its way when they decided to sell off the FT/Penguin, a company THAT short-sighted can’t be expected to do very well, I’ll just wait for the private equity firms to come and take us over and close us down for good…..

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Mar 11, 2026
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CEO approval
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Pros

Easy job to have some money on the side.

Cons

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2
2.0
May 31, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Remote, $2300 a month for not that many hours of work.

Cons

The widespread incoherence of Pearson is irritating me to a significant degree. -the hiring committee mentioned the wrong pay rate so I spent a month worrying about money -the payroll agency shared the actual pay rate which was sustainable ($2,300 a month, my bills are $1,800, $2,100 with your fee baked in. - I procrastinated this week because I didn't know how to read the bureaucratese on the assignment - I figured out how to read the bureaucratese and went back to K. saying, I think I've developed something genuinely useful as a reference material for new employees. I had to synthesize information from 100 pages of PowerPoints into a two page document which cleared up the anxiety I had about how to start -can't believe K. and other managers worked as Classroom Teachers because the way they scatter information has no coherence. I had to peruse numerous documents in the SharePoint "cloud" folders, take notes, and develop a master reference document before I could interpret how to develop questions based on the bureaucratese. -I was never the most organized classroom teacher but my students knew what was expected of them. I put dates on assignments that were linear and in a consecutive sequence of beginning of week, midweek, end of week. If students had a test, I made a review sheet that was a consolidated 2-7 pages. I would never expect even my Honors students to consult dozens of pages in order to study. -I told K. about the reference document I developed and she met me partway: she recognizes one aspect of the process could be better done, new employees could be more adequately trained on the acronyms we use. That's like 25% of the way to completion. I had to figure out that "Administration 2" means the second half of a course AKA Economics for 5th and 7th graders, and 11E just means 11th grade Economics. But instead of the standards being sorted by subject, they are sorted by grade. Since the standards start with 5 for anything 5th grade, 7 for anything 7th grade, 11 for anything 11th grade, it would be coherent to just combine the standards into one document and organize by subject. -Some companies are smart, caring people trapped inside of bad systems. Like classroom teachers. Pearson feels like a repeat of my last company in its poor design and incoherence but less abusive. H) Pearson assigned us 11 questions in a spreadsheet. I think fewer mistakes would be made if they paid a college student Education major $15 an hour to type up our assignments with the criteria they want for each question. Our time is worth $30-$100 an hour. We are subject matter experts. But comprehending the bureaucratese drains cognitive energy. -I had anxiety about getting all 11 questions produced then K. said, oh you only turn in one question for the first week. Something they never said on the Microsoft Teams meeting we had last Wednesday for onboarding. If I received a sheet with 11 questions in the cloud and my name on it that's what I'm going to think I need to accomplish. But K. put in another email, only submit one question for a week. Email should be subordinate to the cloud, the cloud should supersede email ex. The federal government supremacy clause: federal government has greater authority than state governments. -Spent an hour trying to save the questions I developed in Abbi, only for them not to process and upload. Abbi feels clunky with technical failures of the early internet

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