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The independent optical profession is worth fighting for. Join the people who are fighting for it.

The Optical Independent is not one voice. It is many.

This publication is built on a simple idea: the people who understand independent optical practice best are the ones living it. The optometrist who opened their own practice three years ago. The dispensing optician who manages a busy independent and knows exactly what keeps the lights on. The optical assistant who has watched three different practice owners run three completely different businesses and learned something valuable from every one of them.

We are a cooperative of contributors — employed and independent, clinical and commercial, newly qualified and long established — united by one belief: that the independent optical profession deserves better information, better support and a louder voice than it has ever had.

Who contributes.

Optical professionals at every stage and in every setting. Practice owners and employees. Optometrists and dispensing opticians. Optical assistants and practice managers. Students on the way in and veterans on the way out. Suppliers who want to share genuine knowledge rather than marketing copy.

Some write regularly. Some contribute a single piece when they have something worth saying. Some appear as interview subjects — their experience and knowledge shared in their own words rather than filtered through someone else's summary.

There is no party line. No word count minimum. No requirement to be published anywhere before. Just something worth saying and the willingness to say it.

Want to join us?

If you work in optics — in any role, at any stage, employed or independent — and you have something worth saying, we want to hear from you.

A decision you made. A lesson you learned the hard way. A perspective the profession needs to hear. An experience that would have helped you if someone else had written it first.

Get in touch below and join our Contributors 

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