How to become a school secretaries

Official title: School secretaries

Also called: Secretary, School clerk, School secretary, School administrator, School support officer, School office administrator, Clerk-typist, Admin officer, Admin assistant, Clerical officer, Clerical assistant, Registry assistant

School secretaries provide administrative support in schools by keeping and maintaining school records and performing a range of routine clerical tasks within the school.

Main tasks

• Sorts, files and otherwise deals with incoming and outgoing correspondence
• Types directly or transcribes letters, reports and other documents, and prints or photocopies documents as required
• Maintains administrative records relating to pupils and staff, and generates statistical and other reports
• Handles enquiries from parents and arranges meetings with members of staff
• Undertakes reception duties for visitors, handles face-to-face and telephone enquiries and passes on messages
• Orders equipment and stationery
• Arranges payment of invoices, handles cash

How to become one

There are no formal academic entry requirements, although many employers expect entrants to possess GCSEs/S grades, and professional secretarial courses typically require GCSEs/S grades. NVQs/SVQs in Administration are available at levels 2, 3 and 4.

Ways in

• University: Business & Commerce degrees, Offered by 27 universities in the UK
• University: Arts & Humanities degrees, Offered by 27 universities in the UK

Pay · Outlook

• Median full-time pay: £26,463 a year The middle half earn £23,083 to £29,542.
• About 64,100 people work in this job now, and about 51,700 are projected by 2035. (-19.4%)

Related jobs

• Personal assistants and other secretaries
• Medical secretaries
• Legal secretaries
• Company secretaries and administrators
• Receptionists
• Typists and related keyboard occupations

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Questions people ask

How do I become a school secretaries?

There are no formal academic entry requirements, although many employers expect entrants to possess GCSEs/S grades, and professional secretarial courses typically require GCSEs/S grades. NVQs/SVQs in Administration are available at levels 2, 3 and 4.

How much does a school secretaries earn in the UK?

Median full-time pay is £26,463 a year (Office for National Statistics). The middle half earn £23,083 to £29,542.

Is a school secretaries a growing career in the UK?

Employment is projected to fall 19% by 2035, from about 64,100 to about 51,700 people (Department for Education).

Do you need a degree to become a school secretaries?

Not always. 35% of people in this job hold a bachelor's degree or higher. Ways in include: Business & Commerce degrees; Arts & Humanities degrees.

Sources

• Office for National Statistics: Annual Population Survey: employment by occupation (April 2025 to March 2026), OGL v3.0, retrieved 2026-10-03
• Office for National Statistics: SOC 2020 Volume 1: structure and descriptions (2026-08-27 edition), OGL v3.0, retrieved 2026-10-03
• Department for Education: Skills Imperative 2035: employment projections by occupation (2021 to 2035 (Warwick IER / Cambridge Econometrics)), OGL v3.0, retrieved 2026-10-03
• Office for National Statistics: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, Table 14 (2025 provisional), OGL v3.0, retrieved 2026-10-03

Updated 2026-10-03

Graduate outcomes: Discover Uni dataset, HESA (www.hesa.ac.uk), licensed under CC BY 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0). Aggregated by subject and adapted by Peernovo.