The Education Workforce: improving pay and conditions
The teaching workforce relies on retaining existing staff and recruiting new trainees to meet the demands of the pupil population. A ‘bulge’ in pupil numbers has now moved from primary to secondary, posing recruitment problems in secondary, leading to more leaders reporting unfilled posts: the number of teacher vacancies has increased from 1,600 in November 2021 to 2,300 in November 2022. Temporarily filled posts have also increased from 2,200 to 3,300. Retention rates in the latest data from the School Workforce Census (SWC) show that 9.7% of teachers left teaching in 2021/22, a return to the pre-pandemic rate. For the 2024/25 intake of trainee teachers, 10 out of 17 subjects are on course to miss recruitment targets. The teacher recruitment and retention crisis pre-dates the pandemic with targets missed since 2010.
