Professor Sarah Jackson

Background

Sarah is a work-life balance and flexible working expert. Since becoming a parent over thirty years ago, her working life has involved campaigning, research and practical action to make paid work more inclusive of parents and carers.

As chair of PiPA (Parents and Carers in Performing Arts) she has a particular interest in how the performing arts industry can use flexible working to become more inclusive in its employment of parents and carers onstage, backstage and offstage.

She was until 2018 the CEO of Working Families. With Clare Kelliher, she commissioned the UK's first research on the links between flexible working and performance. She chaired and judged the Working Families annual employer best practice awards, and also chaired the Department for Work and Pensions' Private Sector Employers Working Group on Flexible Working, which made early calls for jobs to be advertised flexibly from the off, and which advised extensively on the ACAS guidance to support the Right to Request Flexible Working.

Sarah is also a Trustee of Scottish Opera, and of Rosa, the UK fund for women and girls.