Responding to the publication of data on the school workforce in England in 2023, James Zuccollo, Director for School Workforce at the Education Policy Institute (EPI), said:
“Today’s school workforce data demonstrates the acute challenges that schools across the country continue to face in recruiting and retaining the staff that they need.
“Overall, the number of teachers joining the state-funded sector has fallen, down 3,900 since last year. The number of newly qualified entrants to the profession continues to fall dramatically amid weak recruitment to teacher training courses, suggesting struggles in making the profession attractive to graduates. Surprisingly, the positive trend of more teachers returning to the state sector has continued.
“Retention rates continue to be a cause for concern, with a notable rise in the number of headteachers quitting before retirement. Retention rates for more experienced teachers, who have spent over ten years in the profession, also continue to decline. More positively, retention rates for early carer teachers remains as high as it has been since 2010, suggesting the Early Career Framework may have achieved some success.
“There has been a 20% rise in teacher vacancies since 2022, driven by a continuing increase in the number of unfilled posts among classroom secondary school teachers.
“Any incoming government must tackle these challenges head-on, if they wish to recruit and retain the outstanding teachers and leaders that our school system requires.
“Policymakers should build on the success of early career teacher reforms, whilst going further to increase the competitiveness of teachers’ pay, which has significantly declined in compared to other professions since 2010, despite a 6.5% pay settlement last year.”
