Would you like to make a real impact with your work? Join us and help deliver our ultimate ambition – to Beat Macular Disease! 

The Macular Society is determined to end the fear and isolation of macular disease through world-class research and the best advice and support.

We are proud to work together to Beat Macular Disease – and this has been recognised in The Sunday Times Best Places to Work 2023 list. Discover what our teams say about working at the Macular Society.

The Macular Society is committed to creating a positive working culture for all employees, as well as a good work-life balance with flexible working options. You can read more about our benefits below.

On this page:

Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI)

We are passionate about treating people fairly and with equality, doing so is instinctive to us. We know that to Beat Macular Disease for all we have work to do. We recognise this and we are resolute that what we do and how we do it is inclusive – for everyone.

This is our goal, but we also have an EDI framework, action plans and committed team members working on ways we can Beat Macular Disease - for all.

Health cash plan

We’ve partnered with Health Assured to offer our team members access to a 24/7 private GP helpline, and the ability to claim back costs towards dental treatments, prescription glasses and contact lenses, physiotherapy and chiropractic appointments, private hospital consultations for diagnosis purposes and much more.

The cash plan enables our team members to claim back the cost towards routine appointments, or speed up a diagnostic consultation on the NHS by using the plan to go privately instead. It can also be used for physiotherapy and chiropractic treatments without needing a referral from a GP.

The plan covers our team members and their children up to the age of 18, with the option of increasing the level of cover or adding a partner by paying direct with Health Assured.

There is also access to 100s of deals and discounts through the MyPerks shopping discount site linked to the health cash plan. Discounts available on food shopping at major supermarkets, entertainment, holidays, white goods, mobile phones, broadband, health & beauty, and clothing and footwear.

Eye health

It goes without saying that your eye health is important to us here at the Macular Society. There are certain legal obligations that require all those who work with display screens to have an eye test every two years and that your employer should pay for this. However, we want to go beyond this.

Which is why we offer all employees, every two years, the option to use a prepaid voucher for use in Specsavers which will cover:

  • Your eye test.
  • One pair of glasses from the £49 range, or £49 towards
    glasses.
  • An additional £20 off when purchasing from the £99 range.
  • If no prescription is required, a pair of non -prescription
    sunglasses.

In addition to the above we will cover the cost of a £10 Optical coherence tomography (OCT) scan. Employees who are also health cash plan members can also use the optical cash back benefit as part of the cash plan.

Family friendly policies

We recognise that we all have lives outside of our work, which is why we offer opportunities to work flexibility and offer a range of enhanced family leave policies. In addition, we also provide emergency and compassionate leave.

We know that having a family is a big commitment to make and we want to be able to help during this life changing time, we genuinely value our diverse team and so we have put in place supportive policies such as:

  • Up to five days paid dependants leave to care for dependants in the event of illness.
  • Paid leave for fertility treatment
  • Paid foster leave
  • Paid miscarriage leave
  • Enhanced maternity paid leave – 8 weeks full pay, 12 weeks half pay and the remaining at statutory pay.
  • Adoption and shared parental leave that mirrors our maternity pay.
  • Two weeks paid paternity leave

Learning and development

Enabling staff to continuously develop is a key part of our charity's strategy. To support both professional and personal development we offer a variety of in-house and external training and development opportunities, including accessible e-learning for our teams.

HR staff member - Natalie Bale smiling

“Sharing our training with other organisations, working collaboratively – everyday really is a school day. I have learnt so much and know there is still more to learn. The Macular Society encourages me and gives me the tools I need to provide an excellent service to our members and for me to feel fulfilled in my role to develop further.”

Natalie Bale, Skills for Seeing programme co-ordinator

Annual leave

We offer 26 days' annual leave per annum plus recognised bank and public holidays. After completing 1 year's service, staff receive 1 additional day’s leave. Staff also have an option of buying up to 5 days additional annual leave.

Pension

The Society will make a pension contribution of 6% of salary through our pension scheme set up with The Pensions Trust. Employees will need to make a minimum contribution of 2% of salary.

Employee Assistance Programme

In addition to legal and financial advice, a free, confidential counselling service is available to all staff through our Employee Assistance Programme provided by Thelus Health.

Our values

Read more on our values.

office speech bubble page-card

What our teams say

Hear from our teams what it is like working for the Macular Society.

Community & fundraising team photo

Current job vacancies

Explore exciting careers at Macular Society. See current vacancies and apply now.