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Community education officers help to organise and encourage participation in local educational programmes, such as literacy, numeracy and computing classes. They usually focus on areas with high levels of unemployment and social deprivation.

Responsibilities typically include:

• planning educational programmes

• establishing new community initiatives

• liaising with relevant community groups and organisations

• recruiting, training and supervising tutors

• managing budgets

• maintaining records

• writing plans and reports

• determining priorities

• preparing and submitting funding applications

• undertaking outreach work to encourage more people to participate

• facilitating self-help community groups

• helping individuals to control their own learning 

Qualifications and training required

For most community education officer roles, employers look for graduates with relevant paid or voluntary community experience. However, there are also routes into this career for school leavers.

Graduates can have a degree in any discipline, although qualifications in sociology, social work or policy, community studies, communications, public administration or social sciences can be advantageous. Teaching and adult or further education qualifications can also be helpful, as can a postgraduate qualification in community studies or community education, particularly if your first degree is not in a related subject. It is normally necessary to undertake relevant paid or voluntary community work experience prior to entry into the profession. Employers generally consider personality and experience to be more important than degree subject studied.

It may be possible to enter this area of work without a degree if you have extensive relevant experience, particularly in the voluntary sector and in roles that involve family or recreational activities. 

Key skills for community education officers

Good interpersonal, teamworking, problem-solving and communication skills are essential, as is a mature, confident, patient and resilient disposition. Long hours, working with people in disadvantaged situations and limited funding and resources can sometimes make the job quite demanding.

Typical employers of community education officers

Employers of community education officers include voluntary and charitable organisations (for example, the Workers' Educational Association), local authorities, arts and heritage organisations, educational institutions and youth or community organisations.