There are not enough words in a dissertation to do it justice why I would not recommend anyone to work at ambitious. All I would say is read what people that start at the bottom have said in the past and stay wary of positive praise as they are usually either people from behind a desk boosting the review score to help save the free falling reputation of a dysfunctional hybrid of charity/educator that performs as such. Or people financially incentivised to leave a positive score because morale is so low and turn over is so extraordinarily high.
Talented, experienced and educated to a high degree staff are lowballed into taking the absolute lowest salary, do not be fooled by the 17.4-22 figure you will be starting at the lowest, if you survive probation, there may be a chance to not die of starvation in this currently inflated economy. This seems to be an insulting attempt to trap you into staying for regular increases of 6-7 hundred pounds every year and passing probation. My personal favourite story is after inflation increased even higher along with the cost of living, instead of offering even a small increase in pay, the offer was to be receiving free bread for breakfast with maybe some things to spread on it. I am being neither satirical or dramatic. Its a good thing staff work next to a food bank as soon itll be offered as a workplace perk of the job. One of the very few ambitious offer their staff.
Some staff will be secretly offered more or less depending not on performance or experience but on preference from senior management.
Senior management is cliquey, immature, unprofessional and frustrating to work under. There's a prevalent theme of blame culture, lack of accountability and deep levels of incompetence flooding through the service.
Many people work there as glorified baby sitters that are being fed like cannon fodder into hospital trips due to serious injuries while senior management offer advice such as 'you knew what you were signing up for' after life changing injuries.
Road to progression is absolutely and utterly limited to the amount that your seniors like you. I believe as I have seen students kept at the college against their free will (they have communicated they are unhappy at college) as adults due to their high funding they get from the local council.
The entire college is built around a robust culture of viewing labs as expendable and if they are unhappy or feeling undervalued then the only answer is the universal saying of 'this job isn't for everyone' it's quite extraordinary to behold when your there.
Do not believe the recruiting strategies ambitious create. Its a resentful, bogged down, cliquey and messy organisation that once had a beautiful vision and has veered far away from its original purpose.