Jay Ashcroft

Jay Ashcroft is a best-selling author, international speaker and award winning entrepreneur working to accelerate school improvement through the use of simple and effective technology.

Having been around technology since before he could walk or talk, it seemed impossible that Jay would settle into any other career than one that involved it. However, education ran a close second, and after graduating University, Jay spent a number of years teaching, first in music schools and then in inner-city state secondary schools.

In 2011, Jay took the opportunity join Apple and it was here that he combined his passions for education and technology. Jay worked with Apple’s retail partners, in a role focusing heavily on staff development and turned a new store in one of England’s most deprived areas into one of Europe’s highest performers in just 12 months. Jay’s expertise and practices were later incorporated into the company’s training provision.

Later, he stepped across into an education role and oversaw more than £2 million of Apple hardware deployed into schools, working with thousands of teachers in the process and learning about their struggles firsthand. In 2014, discontent with how little support schools had when getting to grips with new technology, Jay made the decision to leave his career and invested his savings to found LearnMaker. Having worked with over 500 schools, Jay has developed deep and unique insights in UK education and has worked with The Department for Education, Apple and Google since 2014.

Today, Jay combines his expertise in technology, education and organisational development to

personally support the improvement of numerous schools. Jay is a best-selling author, an award winning entrepreneur, and is asked to speak across the globe on the role technology plays in the future of education.