Increasing teacher numbers: Secondary and further education

The Department has no clear or coherent approach bringing together its various initiatives on teacher recruitment and retention. In 2024–25, the Department had a £700 million package, excluding pay and pensions, for recruitment and retention initiatives which the Department has allocated in a way to make as much progress as possible. This includes bursaries and scholarships to recruit teachers in particular subjects (£233 million budget in 2024–25), and a two-year support package for newly qualified teachers (£131 million budget in 2024–25). It has undertaken some evaluation of its recruitment and retention initiatives, but it has still to undertake a full evaluation, including non-financial initiatives despite a recommendation by a previous Public Accounts Committee in 2016. The Department has limited evidence on the effectiveness of initiatives to improve workload or wellbeing, despite these being common reasons for teachers leaving. Given these gaps, and a lack of targets (beyond those for those starting teacher training), the Department cannot make fully informed decisions on where best to focus resources and justify funding pots. More widely, the Department has started some cross-sector thinking, as well as value for money analysis. This has been used to stop, for example, international relocation payments for trainees. recommendation The Department should develop a whole-system strategy to help frame how it will recruit and retain school and college teachers. This should be based on a fuller evidence base, establish the preferred balance between recruitment and retention initiatives; set appropriate targets for those joining teaching through different routes; and include value for money analysis of different initiatives.

Teacher vacancies and the challenges of retaining experienced teachers are greater for schools in deprived areas, and across some core subjects, leading to inequities in provision and career opportunities. Schools and colleges decide their own staffing model and have discretion around how they chose to use funding which may, for example, lead to variances in the use of supply teachers and pupil-teacher ratios. Schools with higher proportions of disadvantaged pupils tend to have higher turnover rates and less experienced teachers – 34% of teachers in the most disadvantaged schools had less than five years of experience, compared to 20% in the least disadvantaged schools. These schools also suffer teacher shortages in specialist subjects, such as in Computing (1.4% vacancy rate against 0.8% in secondary schools overall). This means that disadvantaged students are at risk of being locked out of particular careers due to a lack of trained teachers 31% of schools in the most disadvantaged areas do not offer Computer Science A-level (compared to 11% in the least disadvantaged areas), and 9% do not offer Physics A-level (1% in the least 5 disadvantaged areas). This issue is critical to the government’s mission of breaking down barriers to opportunity, but the Department does not have a timescale for when we can expect to see reduced variation between schools in more and less disadvantaged areas. Challenges extend to colleges which struggle to find trained teachers in specialist subjects, such as construction, where shortages in the wider labour market increases the competition for talent and means fewer people are likely to apply. recommendation The Department should work with schools and colleges to understand the reasons behind variations, particularly within deprived areas and core subjects, setting this out in published information to help identify and share good practice and ideas on what works best.

The Department has recently increased its focus on addressing the significant teacher gaps across further education colleges, but there remains much more to do. A shortage of further education college teachers, which impacts the type and extent of skills developed, puts the achievement of the government’s missions for opportunity and growth at risk. In general, further education colleges, 5.1 out of every 100 positions were vacant in 2022–23 and the Department estimate that colleges will need 8,400 to 12,400 more teachers by 2028–29. Compared to schools, the workforce data kept by the Department is less detailed and complete, requiring it to make broader assumptions as part of its workforce model. The Department has begun to focus more on addressing teacher shortages in further education, describing this as now a strong focus. The Department say this includes recently providing £400 million additional funding to the sector, extending targeted retention incentives to further education from October 2024, and bringing in professionals who teach alongside working in industry. This also helps ensure students are taught the latest practices. College teacher pay remains, on average, £10,000 lower than school teacher pay. With no national pay review body, colleges set their own pay considering the funding from the Department, but colleges continue to feel there has been limited additional funding despite government’s positive messages. recommendation Given the urgent need for further education teachers, the Department should update the Committee on its full recruitment and retention plans for the further education sector as soon as possible, including expanding dual professional and industry partnerships in areas of key skill shortages, and then every six months until summer 2028, on its progress addressing gaps. 6

Teachers’ working environment and conditions remain critically important to teacher retention, with workload cited as the top reason for teachers leaving, and pupil behaviour an escalating challenge. The Department does not offer payments or structured support for more experienced teachers, which means their working environment constitutes one of the main levers keeping them in the profession. The Department recognises workload as the top reason for teachers leaving and has, for example, worked with Ofsted to reduce marking requirements. However, it does not understand the root causes behind these factors including, for example, why and where workload is high. The Department does not dictate working patterns, or maternity and paternity leave, with schools and colleges making these decisions. However, there remains a lack of flexible working arrangements for teachers, although the Department has signalled an intention to raise improving maternity and paternity leave for teachers. More widely, the Department is looking to learn from the health sector on creating clearer career pathways. We are concerned about worsening pupil behaviour impacting workload and the wider environment, with the Department aiming to address this through new attendance and behaviour hubs. Only 17% of schools and colleges have signed the Department’s wellbeing charter. recommendation The Department should work to better understand why teachers leave and then better support schools and colleges in addressing these factors. This includes looking at changes to contractual and working conditions, such as flexible working, and at how teacher workload can be reduced. It should also collect data on the effectiveness of the newly-announced behaviour hubs, rolling them out further if they prove to be successful.

The Department recognises pay as important in recruiting and retaining teachers, but is less clear on how it considers pay alongside other initiatives and how schools and colleges can afford pay rises. Pay is important in recruiting and retaining teachers. The Department’s influence on pay differs between schools and colleges, for schools, it sets pay ranges and then provides schools a funding package to be used, by schools, on pay and other areas of spend – it has assumed schools will make 1% efficiency savings in 2025–26 to afford pay rises. Colleges do not have a pay review body, setting their own salaries from the funding received. Schoolteachers have received a 17% combined pay increase from the last three pay awards. The Department has reduced its teacher trainee targets as it expects 2,500 more teachers to stay because of the most recent 5.5% pay award. The Department recognises college teachers continue to receive less than those in secondary, who earn around 7 £10,000 more, and those in industry where, for example, IT professionals can earn over £11,000 more. The Department has assessed the relative value for money for some of its financial incentives but has not assessed the extent to which increasing pay has a similar impact. It is unclear how important the Department considers pay over, for example, the Early Career Framework in retaining teachers. It is also worth noting that teachers benefit automatically from a defined benefit pension scheme, a hugely valuable yet easily under-sold perk of the job. recommendation The Department should assess the effectiveness and relative value-for-money of pay against other recruitment and retention initiatives, to make an explicit decision on whether it needs to do more to ensure teachers are paid the right amount. 8 1 The Department’s approach to considering teacher recruitment and retention Introduction

On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence from the Department for Education (the Department) on increasing teacher numbers across secondary schools and further education colleges.1

We asked the Department what baseline it was using to measure whether 6,500 additional teachers had been recruited. It told us it had not set a year as a baseline, but that the number of teachers would be more than before the pledge had started and that it was working on the detail as part of the Spending Review.14 It was unable to tell us how the 6,500 teachers would be distributed across schools and further education colleges, although it did say it would consider the need for skilled special educational needs teachers.15 Furthermore, the Department could not indicate how we could follow progress with the pledge, for example through milestones that would help show whether it was on track. It reiterated that it would not be able to provide further details until after the Spending Review.16 Written evidence from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation stressed the importance of “transparent reporting against the “6,500 additional teachers” pledge, broken down by sector, subject, and region”.17

Although unable to breakdown the pledge by time or educational setting, or provide a baseline, the Department described having started delivering the pledge through, for example, the 5.5% pay award for schoolteachers in 2024–25 and an increase to the financial incentives package for schools 10 C&AG’s Report, para 2.37 11 ITN0006, Written evidence submitted by the National Foundation for Educational Research ; ITN0012, Written evidence submitted by the Campaign for Mathematical Sciences 12 C&AG’s Report, para 1.9 13 Qq 14, 65 14 Q 63 15 Q 66 16 Qq 65-67; C&AG’s Report, paras 19, 2.41-2.42 17 ITN0011, Written evidence submitted by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation 11 and colleges.18 The Department told us it was already seeing a positive impact, including 2,000 more secondary teachers starting training than the previous year and early signs of around 1,000 more teachers applying for the next year. It also now expects to retain about 2,500 more teachers than it had previously expected.19 Recruitment and retention

In 2024–25, the Department budgeted to spend around £700 million across a range of initiatives, other than pay and pensions, designed to improve teacher recruitment and retention.20 Of this, £390 million (49%) related to financial incentives. This included training bursaries and scholarships (£233 million) and retention payments for teachers, often aimed at those teaching specific subjects and those teaching in deprived areas.21 The remaining £310 million (51%) of funding related to the Department providing non-financial benefits, such as opportunities for professional development. For example, it budgeted to spend £131 million on a framework to better support those in the first two years of their career.22

We asked the Department how confident it was that the initiatives funded through the £700 million represented the best value for money. It told us it had allocated the funding in a way to make what is described as “as much progress as possible”.23 We challenged the Department on, for example, whether the £26 million annual spend relating to its recruitment website reflected the right amount. The Department subsequently clarified what these costs covered the whole of the Get Into Teaching service for 2024-25, which comprises the School Teacher Recruitment marketing campaign, candidate support services, teaching internships and digital products and services including the website, costing £1.3 million. However, the Department’s response does not allow like for like comparison with the costs for other comparable recruitment websites or activities or show any analysis of whether the costs were appropriate.24

In 2016, the previous Public Accounts Committee recommended that the Department should undertake a full evaluation of all its recruitment and retention initiatives to understand what works, including 18 Q 62; C&AG’s Report, para 2.38 19 Qq 22, 62 20 C&AG’s Report, para 2.2 21 Q 14; C&AG’s Report, paras 2.8-2.9, 2.11-2.12, 2.38, Figure 16 22 C&AG’s Report, paras 2.8, 2.14, 2.19 23 Q 14 24 Qq 18, 21; Letter from the Department for Education to the Committee, 2 June 2025 12 those not providing a financial incentive.25 The Department accepted the recommendation and, while it has undertaken some evaluation, it has yet to undertake a full evaluation which includes non-financial incentives and all those initiatives available to further education colleges. The Department recognised that for further education initiatives, its evaluation activity was less mature. The Department stressed that it did not want to spend public money “on things that do not work”, and that it had used evidence to discontinue some schemes such as international relocation payments for trainee teachers. It intends to use the analysis of school related financial recruitment incentives to help decide where to direct funding. It plans to expand this analysis to include retention initiatives such as flexible working, and the newer further education initiatives.26

We were interested to understand why the Department only has targets for those starting initial teacher training in primary and secondary schools, when this is just one of several entry routes into teaching.27 In the year to November 2023, 41% of secondary teachers entering the workforce were newly qualified teachers, with 39% returners to the state-funded sector, 13% new to the state-funded sector and 7% being deferred newly-qualified teachers. Overall teacher numbers are also impacted by those staying, with the number of qualified teachers leaving secondary schools starting to increase to pre-pandemic levels – 19,860 in 2022–23.28 The Department acknowledged that it had focussed on initial teacher training targets, despite considering other routes within its teacher workforce modelling to calculate these targets. The Department told us it wants to tell the “full story” and recognised the need to change the way it publicly presents other routes into teaching to better reflect how critical these are alongside initial teaching training.29 Written evidence from Education Support proposed that, in the same way that the Department has a teacher trainee target, it should set targets for the numbers of teachers, leaders and support staff it needs to retain as a key performance indicator.30

We questioned the Department on what it was doing to better understand the competition between schools and colleges when recruiting teachers.31 The Department has identified that around 60% of workers who leave an education occupation move into another education occupation. However, until recently, departmental teams for schools and further 25 Committee of Public Accounts, Training new teachers, Third Report of Session 2016–17, HC 73, 10 June 2016; HM Treasury, Treasury Minutes – Government responses to the Committee of Public Accounts, November 2016 (page 23) 26 Qq 56-57; C&AG’s Report, paras 2.32-2.33 27 Qq 55 28 C&AG’s Report, paras 1.10-1.11, Figure 3 29 Qq 22, 55 30 ITN0009, Written evidence submitted by Education Support 31 Q 42 13 education worked in silos, and the Department’s only recruitment strategy, from 2019, applied just to schools.32 The Department has now started to think in a more joined-up way, to help better understand what works and the trade-offs of its decisions.33 Focus on recruitment and retention within further education colleges

In offering vocational training, further education colleges support the government’s missions for building skills for economic growth and spreading opportunities too all children. However, colleges struggle to compete with schools and industry to recruit the teachers required and have experienced more significant challenges than schools in getting a workforce with the relevant experience. This will impact the type and extent of skills that can be taught. In 2022–23, 5.1 out of every 100 teaching positions in further education colleges were vacant.34 Looking ahead, the Department estimates colleges will need 8,400 to 12,400 more teachers by 2028–29.35

We asked the Department if it thought there has been less focus on recruitment in further education than there should have been given the need to increase skills across the UK economy. For example, written evidence we received from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation and the Association of Colleges highlighted the £10,000 pay gap between teachers in schools and further education which they felt should be closed as a matter of priority.36 Also, in 2024–25, the majority of the £700 million (88%) budget for recruitment and retentions initiatives related to schools, with colleges feeling there has been limited additional funding despite the government’s positive messages.37

The Department acknowledged that it was concerned about the position in colleges, where the vacancy rate was significantly higher than in schools, but it described having a “strong” focus on recruitment into further education.38 It explained that it had introduced various initiatives such as recently investing £400 million in the sector;39 extending targeted retention incentives to colleges from October 2024, with an estimated 32 C&AG’s Report, paras 2.34-2.35 33 Qq 31, 43; C&AG’s Report, para 2.35 34 C&AG’s Report, paras 1.13, 2.4, Figure 8 35 C&AG’s Report, Key Facts 36 ITN0011, Written evidence submitted by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation; ITN0014, Written evidence submitted by the Association of Colleges 37 Q 12; C&AG’s Report paras 2.2, 2.7 38 Q 44 39 Q 12 14 6,000 people benefitting to date, and positive feedback from colleges;40 and a two-year programme to attract teachers and support them through their first two years.41 The Department also described expanding the use of “dual professionals” who teach alongside working in industry. They can upskill other teachers and ensure students are taught the latest practices.42 Written evidence from both the Construction Industry Training Board and the Education and Training Foundation support the value dual professionals bring to the further education sector.43 However, written evidence from the Association of Colleges mentions these initiatives are still “fairly new” with none having fully been evaluated yet on their long-term impact.44

The Department has overseen further education colleges since July 2016 with further education colleges reclassified into the public sector in November 2022. Its further education workforce data collection started in 2020, and while this was able to cover 94% of colleges in 2022–23, this compares to 99.7% of schools providing the Department with workforce data. As such, the Department must make broad assumptions as part of its further education workforce model which it uses to project the number of teachers needed. It has assessed 60% of assumptions in its model as having limited or no underlying evidence.45 40 Qq 6, 8-10, 13, 45; Targeted retention incentive for FE teachers: data as of 5 May 2025 - GOV.UK 41 Qq 12, 44 42 Q 7 43 ITN0001, Written evidence submitted by the Construction Industry Training Board; ITN0007, Written evidence submitted by Education and Training Foundation 44 ITN0014, Written evidence submitted by the Association of Colleges 45 C&AG’s Report, paras 10, 1.20 15 2 Initiatives and incentives to improve teacher recruitment and retention Teachers’ working environment and conditions

We asked the Department what it was doing to understand why fewer people stay working in the education sector compared with other sectors – 38% of those who had worked within the education sector at some point between the ages of 17 and 29 were still doing so at age 30, compared with 44% in health, 48% in the public sector as a whole and 49% in the private sector. The Department told us it had done some significant work looking at “cross-fertilisation between parts of the education sector”, and that it was considering learning from the health sector on how it could make it easier for people to build careers but accepted that it could do more.46

The Department’s annual teacher survey showed that 84% of teachers who had left between its 2023 and 2024 surveys described high workload as a reason for leaving, with 75% citing stress and/or poor wellbeing. Full-time secondary school teachers in England work on average 50.3 hours per week in term time.47 The Department told us schoolteachers in England work more than their international counterparts but spend fewer hours in the classroom with pupils. It also told us that while it has made some progress on reducing hours by working with Ofsted to reduce marking requirements, it is “quite hard” to understand the root causes behind what contributed to high teacher workloads and when or why this would be a problem.48

The Department does not offer experienced teachers any financial incentives to stay, such as bursaries or retention payments, or structured support, such as the Early Career Framework for those with up to two years of experience. The Department’s ability to influence teacher workload and working patterns is limited, with school and college leaders responsible 46 Q 30; C&AG’s Report, para 1.11 47 C&AG’s Report, paras 2.24-2.26 48 Q 34 16 for setting the conditions, arrangements and the overarching culture. However, the Department can support schools and colleges in improving the working environment.49 The Department provides support and guidance to schools and colleges, which includes: • A wellbeing charter for schools and colleges to sign-up to, setting out their commitments.50 We challenged the Department on whether it was fit for purpose given that only 17% of eligible schools and colleges had signed up. The Department recognised it needs to do more to encourage take up and are considering whether the charter’s promotion or content needs to be refreshed.51 • Working with Education Endowment Foundation to build its evidence base on flexible working.52 While the school teaching workforce is predominantly female, 26% of female teachers worked part-time in 2023–24, compared with 37% of female employees in the UK labour market.53 Written evidence from the Maternity Teacher Paternity Teacher Project states that “teaching is incompatible with motherhood”.54 The Department could provide some good practice, mentioning Dixons academy in Bradford who had implemented nine- day fortnights. We also asked how fathers are expected be teachers with just two-weeks paternity leave. While the Department said this is for schools and teaching unions to negotiate it agreed to look at this in the Burgundy Book and signalled intentions to look at how this could be improved.55

We challenged the Department on the extent to which poor pupil behaviour could negatively impact teachers’ mental health and wellbeing, as set out in written evidence from Education Support.56 60% of schoolteachers felt they spent too much time following up on behaviour incidents and the proportion of ex-teachers citing pupil behaviour as a reason for leaving rose from 32% to 44% in one year alone (2023 to 2024). The Department told us that a lot of the good practice work on behaviour issues highlighted good quality whole-school behaviour policies. In May 2025, the Department announced 90 new attendance and behaviour hubs that will target “intensive” support 49 C&AG’s Report, Figure 1 and 11 50 C&AG’s Report, para 2.27 51 Q 35 52 Q 33 53 C&AG’s Report, para 2.29 54 ITN0004 55 Q 28 56 ITN0009 17 to 500 schools a year and for best practice on tackling behaviour to be spread to 450 other schools. It noted that the network and regional learning from this will “make a difference”.57 Importance of pay

The Department regards pay as its strongest lever in recruiting and retaining teachers. For example, following the most recent 5.5% pay award, the Department reduced its teacher trainee targets as it expected 2,500 more teachers to stay. However, teacher pay has lagged behind others – in 2024, those working in the education sector were paid around 10% less in real terms than in 2010, with the wider public sector being paid on average 2.6% less than in 2010.58 Written evidence from the National Foundation for Educational Research stated that the Department’s 2.8% pay increase for 2025–26 is lower than the Office for Budget Responsibility’s 3.7% forecast for earnings growth in 2025–26.59 Subsequently, the government announced schoolteachers will receive a 4% pay increase for 2025–26.60 The Department recognises college teachers continue to receive less than those in secondary, who earn, on average, around £10,000 more.61 Also, the Department’s own analysis suggests IT professionals in industry, for example, earn £11,000 more than an equivalent further education teacher.62 Written evidence from the National Association of Head teachers, Royal Society of Biology and the National Education Union all stressed the need for the competitiveness of teacher pay to be improved to attract and retain enough teachers.63

The Department’s influence on teacher pay differs across schools and colleges. For secondary schools, the Department sets teacher pay ranges based on advice from a pay review body. Local-authority- maintained schools must apply these ranges, whilst academies set their own pay although many follow the Department’s guidance.64 We asked the Department how it would ensure schools can afford the pay awards, particularly given the 17% combined pay increase over the last three pay awards, the wider financial pressures faced by schools and the need to find, for example, efficiencies through improving procurement policies or energy contracts.65 The Department told us that it funds pay awards 57 Qq 34, 36; C&AG’s Report, para 2.26 58 C&AG’s Report, paras 2.3, 2.5 59 ITN0006 60 Teacher pay: everything you need to know about the 2025 pay award – The Education Hub 61 Q 8 62 C&AG’s Report, para 2.4 63 ITN0005, ITN0008, ITN0021 64 C&AG’s Report, para 2.6 65 Q 60; ITN0021 18 at an aggregate level, as part of schools’ wider funding package for pay and other areas of spend, but it has also assumed schools will make 1% efficiency savings in 2025–26 to afford pay rises.66 Colleges do not have a pay review body, setting their own salaries from the funding received.67

We asked the Department if it has assessed whether spending on initiatives such the Early Career Framework (£131 million budget in 2024–25) provides better outcomes than simply increasing teachers’ pay. The Department did not confirm if it had undertaken this analysis but instead told us more generally that teaching quality would need to be considered alongside teacher numbers.68 More widely, the Department has begun work to understand the relative costs and benefits of its school- focused financial incentives to recruit teachers which it plans to use to help decide where to direct funding.69 New teachers also benefit from a defined benefit pension scheme.70 While the Department has not considered pay as part of this analysis, the National Foundation for Educational Research concluded that bursaries were more cost-effective when compared with, for example, universal pay increases and other targeted initiatives such as early career payments.71 Increasing teacher numbers in disadvantaged areas and core subjects

In 2023–24, 46% of secondary schools in England reported at least one vacant teaching position, more than double the figure of 17% in 2010–11.72 When we asked the Department how this has affected student outcomes, it told us the quality of teaching was the “single most significant factor” in schools impacting pupil’s achievement.73 However, the Department commented that it sees variation across schools in, for example, pupil- teacher ratios and retention rates. Vacancy rates can be a result of how schools use funding on, for example, supply teachers.74 The Department described significant variation across vacancies in certain specialisms and subjects with, for example, more vacancies for Computing teachers (1.4% vacancy rate) compared to all secondary school subjects (0.8%).75 Schools and further education colleges are responsible for deciding the 66 Qq 59-62 67 C&AG’s Report, 2.7 68 Qq 15, 17 69 C&AG’s Report, para 2.32 70 What is a teacher’s pension? | New Starter | Teachers’ Pensions 71 C&AG’s Report, para 2.10 72 C&AG’s Report, para 1.8 73 Q 3 74 Qq 38, 53, 55 75 Qq 3-5 19 staff they need and recruiting their own workforces. Local authorities employ teachers in maintained schools. Multi-academy trusts play a similar role in the academies sector. Further education colleges also employ their own teachers.76

Those schools with higher proportions of disadvantaged pupils tend to have higher turnover rates and less experienced teachers.77 This impacts the government’s mission of breaking down the barriers to opportunity and means disadvantaged children are at risk of being locked out from particular careers.78 In 2023–24, 34% of teachers in the most disadvantaged schools had up to five years’ experience (20% in the least disadvantaged schools).79 In the most disadvantaged areas, 31% of schools do not offer Computer Science A-level, compared to 11% of schools in the least disadvantaged areas, due to a lack of trained teachers. For Physics A-level, this is 9% compared to 1%.80 We asked the Department when we could expect there to be less variation between schools in the most and least disadvantaged areas, but it did not commit to a timeframe. Instead, it noted that its retention initiatives providing financial incentives were targeting schools and colleges with the highest proportion of disadvantaged students.81

Further education colleges have higher vacancy rates than schools, with challenges across certain subjects, particularly those that are more specialist.82 We asked the Department why further education colleges find it difficult to keep specialist teachers. The Department said it sees more recruitment challenges where there are shortages in the labour market, for example in construction, where 9.6% of teaching positions were vacant in 2022–23. Given a competitive wider labour market, in-demand jobs, like construction, are well-paid and offer salaries which colleges struggle to compete with to recruit the teachers they need.83 76 C&AG’s Report, paras 1.4-1.5 77 C&AG’s Report, para 1.12 78 Qq 38, 41 79 C&AG’s Report, para 1.12 80 Teacher shortages deny nearly a third of poorer pupils’ access to computer science A-level | Teach First 81 Q 41 82 C&AG’s Report, paras 6, 1.13 83 Q 6; C&AG’s Report, para 1.13 20