CST Finance and Operations Conference 2025

6 February 2025 at the Eastside Rooms, Birmingham

Booking has now closed for this event. If you would like to be added to our waiting list, please contact conference@cstuk.org.uk.

Join us to explore this year's theme Building excellence

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle

Great education leaders and teachers need a great finance and operations team working with them to deliver high quality inclusive education. This is truer now than ever when resources are constrained, and levels of need are high. The deployment of resources must always be in service to advancing high quality education. In fact, it is essential to school improvement.

This year’s conference will explore how trusts can optimise their operational functions to build capacity, drive improvement and deliver coherent and consistent support for their schools in the new policy and funding landscape. Keynotes will consider the current fiscal climate for public services and its implications for our sector, and explore research, innovation and the growing body of tools and knowledge to support high performance in trust operations. The workshop programme will offer insight into how trusts are rethinking the deployment of their resources, technology, data and the culture of trust services to increase their schools’ capacity to deliver a great education for all children.

Be inspired

Be inspired

Hear from some of today's leading educational thinkers

Time to think

Time to think

Give you and your leadership team time to re-think how your trust works

Meet and share

Meet and share

Connect with colleagues from school trusts across the country

Work smarter

Work smarter

Engage with innovative providers to the school trust sector

What previous delegates said

Join your CST professional communities

This conference is an extension of CST's Finance and Operations professional communities - unique spaces for school trust staff to network, share, and learn, all year round. Community membership is an integral part of CST membership.

Introducing our keynote speakers

Joanne Dawson

Chief Operating Officer / CFO, Ormiston Academies Trust

Luke Sibieta

Research Fellow, The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)

Sam Freedman

Senior Fellow, Institute for Government

Ticket options

Booking has now closed for this event. If you would like to be added to our waiting list, please contact conference@cstuk.org.uk.

CST Member

CST Member

£350

CST members only: Full conference access including keynotes, workshops, lunch, and resources

Sold out

£420 inc VAT at 20%

CST Member
CST Member with dinner

CST Member with dinner

£390

CST members only: Full conference access including keynotes, workshops, lunch, and resources plus a networking dinner the night before the conference

Sold out

£468 inc VAT at 20%

CST Member with dinner
Non-member

Non-member

£415

Non-CST member place for conference including keynotes, workshops, and lunch

Sold out

£498 inc VAT at 20%

Non-member

COMMUNITY SUPPORTERS in association with

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE CST Finance and Operations Conference 2025

The event programme is provisional and subject to change. Booking terms and conditions apply.
Imagery is from past events and may not reflect the 2025 programme.

Confederation of School Trusts · Registered in England & Wales, company no: 05303883 · Charity no: 1107640.
CST Professional Development Ltd · Registered in England & Wales, company no: 10354936 · VAT Registration Number 270 0880 18
Registered offices both at Suite 1, Whiteley Mill, 39 Nottingham Road, Stapleford, Nottingham, NG9 8AD.