employer cover photo
employer logo
employer logo

British Council

Is this your company?

British Council reviews

3.7

64% would recommend to a friend

(2,304 total reviews)
avatar

Ciarán Devane

63% approve of CEO

46% positive business outlook

British Council has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 2,304 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The British Council employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the ONG y Organizaciones sin fines de lucro industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

2K reviews
1.0
Aug 17, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

* Brand name NGO * Nice office location and facilities * You can take unpaid "career leave" with a guaranteed job if you come back afterwards...but most of those I knew who took it ended up not coming back!

Cons

* Low pay, even for non-profit * Toxic work environment * Inflexible bureaucracy * Bickering and aggressive competition between different offices * They require recommendation from your current employer before they can give you a formal job offer (i.e. forget about a discreet job search!!) * Lack of opportunity to advance * Despite large office, not a great support network . Communication between different project staff in the same dept, let alone different departments, was essentially non-existent. * Finance and IT department was all outsourced to India, even the local finance director and IT staff could not help with basic issues * Questionable use of UK taxpayers' money for "charitable purpose" while generating profit from ESL teaching (i.e. is BC a genuinely charitable organization or an ESL/language school subsidized by public funds?). Questions regarding the validity of the organization's non-profit status in some countries isn't a great morale-booster. * If you aren't a revenue-generator (i.e. English teacher), you are an afterthought. * Restructuring * High turnover and staff dissatisfaction

2.0
Jun 8, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Not much to recommend, overally it's not a pleasant experience, the atmosphere is so fake

Cons

The big boss doesn't know what's going on from the people who close the deal, the lower level people focus just on internal fighting with each other and are afraid to speak out, well, everthing is superficially beautiful but wounded deeply underneath. BC. You have your own fate

2.0
Aug 5, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Some Creative employees, flexible work hours (unless you get a LM from hell), opportunity to crash test new skillsets

Cons

No support from management, management resistant to change, undertrained managers, lack of investment, senior managers waste money on vanity projects, top down management, complacent management, sense of entitlement from senior managers

Viewing 10 - 12 of 2,304 Reviews

Glassdoor has 3,218 British Council reviews submitted anonymously by British Council employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if British Council is right for you.