Pearson reviews

3.5

59% would recommend to a friend

(7,747 total reviews)
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Omar Abbosh

57% approve of CEO

49% positive business outlook

Pearson has an employee rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 7,747 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Pearson employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Media & Communication industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

8K reviews
1.0
Feb 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Honestly, I've struggled to find any pros.

Cons

- Company wants to be a “tech company,” but the talent, tech stack, and leadership capability don’t match the audacious, shareholder-driven goals - Unstable organization: frequent leadership changes, power dynamics, cost cutting, and restructures -Lowball salaries; very stingy with compensation and benefits - Does not want to hire top talents to fulfill ambitious goals and keep the systems running - Little to no process, accountability, or clarity in roles and responsibilities - Pushes AI heavily without clear business use cases—often feels like vaporware for optics - Preference for lower-cost employees (less experienced hires, interns) over needed expertise - Outdated tech stack, no budget for modern tools, and constant buzzword pivots with no clear vision - not a place to come to work if you want to feel valued - Gallup survey results can't be trusted. Direct reports are pushed to filter negative feedback through management before responding, undermining the integrity of the survey. - Managers ask direct reports to commit time outside of work and weekend despite salaried roles and no overtime - High stress, constant chaos due to poor planning, prioritization, and limited budgets - inflated leadership; have budget to expand the leadership team but no funds for the people actually doing the operational work. - no thought leadership or clear, consistent direction Avoid! A company that doesn't value the people doing the actual work

3.0
Feb 14, 2023

Non-trusting environment

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Health benefits are excellent and best I've experienced.

Cons

Lack of trust: CEO doesn't care for remote / work-from-home employees. He stated as much during an all hands company call, suggesting work-from-home employees are prone to take advantage of this arrangement and are not as productive. Age discrimination: Is alive and well at Pearson. CEO even went as far as to compare the performance culture of the company to a sports team that has to bring in younger and stronger players to be competitive. Unqualified Leaders: Sr. Execs with no understanding of the markets they work in are often put in charge of essential strategy decisions. Pay: It's only OK. Base salaries tend to run a bit below industry averages. Some positions are eligible for annual bonus, but it's very unclear how those bonuses are structured.

1.0
May 10, 2021

Toxic Leadership

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

There are some great people working across the organization and once people stop being defensive over their silos, most are very helpful. Employees who have nothing to fear are generally very helpful.

Cons

Where to start. Executive leadership has been taken over by crony silicon valley hucksters who have little experience in education and lack trust in the employees enough to not listen or learn (there is a legitimate contempt for subject matter experience - you could almost not blame them given the quality of Pearson products, but their inability to understand context, history or lessons learned is appalling). Hilariously, they also preach on about how the teams need to adopt a growth mindset while the stand firm behind insurmountable confirmation bias. There is no career growth, unless they identify you as someone they can inspire to "lean in" which mostly just translates to working weekends. Leadership has an absolute lack of empathy, trust or transparency for the people who do the work while vacillating on various, often erratic takes on how to pull off their vision of direct to consumer. Frequent lay offs and siloed teams which creates a fearful and distrusting mindset that everyone wants to steal your cheese.

Viewing 115 - 117 of 7,747 Reviews

Glassdoor has 9,536 Pearson reviews submitted anonymously by Pearson employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Pearson is right for you.