Explore Careers in Education & Childcare

The main sectors that employ people to work with children include the charity and voluntary work, healthcare, social care and teacher training and education sectors. However, jobs working with children are available in other, less obvious industries such as law, leisure, sport and tourism and public services and administration, where you could become a family lawyer, sports coach or children’s librarian respectively. When looking for jobs or work experience it pays to think outside the box. Within the creative arts sector you could become an art therapist or volunteer as a dance teacher at a local community centre.

Working in the voluntary sector you could become a project worker, therapist, protection officer or support worker for charities such as Barnardo’s, Action for Children and The Children’s Society.

The healthcare sector provides a number of opportunities such as the possibility to work as a children’s nurse, health visitor and paediatrician or speech and language therapist.

Within social care you could work as a:

• child psychotherapist
• counsellor
• family support worker
• play therapist
• social worker
• youth worker

Unsurprisingly, the teacher training and education sector offers a variety of opportunities to work with children. You could become a:

• careers advisor
• early years teacher
• educational psychologist
• English as a foreign language teacher
• learning mentor
• museum education officer
• primary school teacher
• secondary school teacher
• special educational needs teacher
• teaching assistant

Jobs with children are strictly regulated, so as well as the right combination of qualifications, skills and experience, you’ll also need to undergo a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check to secure a role.

This helps employers to protect vulnerable groups and make safer recruitment decisions. As part of the DBS check your criminal record history is accessed and you’re checked against a list of named individuals who have harmed, or pose a risk of harm, to vulnerable people and are barred from working with them. Once cleared you will receive a DBS certificate.