Teacher recruitment and retention

Top takeaway

NFER’s Teacher Labour Market in England 2025 report shows teacher recruitment and retention in a ‘perilous state’, presenting an ‘on-going risk to the quality of education’ (report page 3).

Report recommendations include an improved pay award over the next three years, more action to reduce workload, more flexible working, and a focus on improving behaviour. 

Workload

While teacher working hours have reduced slightly since previous reports, they’re still higher than working hours for similar graduates in other jobs. 

A high workload is a key driver in people’s decision to leave teaching, and those who do leave the profession report having an ‘acceptable workload’ and ‘sufficient control over their workload’ in their new job (page 26). 

Administration and lesson planning are key contributors to workload. The report highlights that generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, can reduce time spent on lesson planning, without compromising on quality. 

Pupil behaviour is ‘one of the fastest-growing contributors to teacher workload since the pandemic’ (page 8)

The report notes that staff want more support from outside agencies to support pupil SEND, mental health and safeguarding needs. 

Flexible working

Teaching can’t offer the same home or remote working as other professions, and possibly that’s influencing recruitment and retention. 

However, flexible working arrangements such as part-time working, access to ad hoc days off and the opportunity for PPA to be taken at home or elsewhere, ‘can contribute positively to recruitment, retention, wellbeing and job satisfaction’ (page 29). 

But, as reported in the Working lives of teachers and leaders survey, teachers also have concerns around flexible working, with a lack of confidence in requesting it and feeling it could harm career progression (for more on this survey, see the Need to Know: How do teachers feel about their working life? ). 

Pay

• Teacher salaries are not competitive in comparison to the wider UK labour force. Last year’s 5.5% pay rise means teacher salaries, in real terms, have returned to 2010/11 levels. 
• The report recommends that the Government ensures the Spending Review delivers school budget rises to increase teacher pay by 6.1% from 2026/27 to 2028/29. 

Whether that’s likely to happen or not is another story!

Trainee recruitment and new entrants to the profession

• Secondary ITT recruitment in 2024/25 reached 62% of what the DfE estimated it needed to meet the demand from schools, with 12 out of 17 subjects recruiting below target last year. 
• Primary recruitment reached 88% of its target – the third consecutive year of under-recruitment. 
• Indications so far are that ‘the impact of the Early Career Framework (ECF) on retention may be, at best, modest’ (page 5). 

A bigger impact on schools in more challenging circumstances

‘Data shows that the unfilled vacancy rate for teachers is six times higher than pre-pandemic, while secondary schools have come to rely more heavily on unqualified and non-specialist teachers, especially in schools with more deprived pupil intakes.’ (Teacher Labour Market in England Annual Report 2025)

This difficulty in recruiting impacts on pupils’ classroom experience: ‘the proportion of English and maths teaching hours that are taught by subject specialists is around 10 percentage points lower in the most deprived schools than in the least-deprived’ (report page 5).

The report notes that if the Government wants to improve social mobility, this is an area where action is needed. 

Questions for reflection and action

• Are flexible working arrangements offered to all staff, or is it down to individuals to request it? What would happen if your setting was proactive in offering flexible working opportunities, such as part-time hours? 
• Is it workload itself that’s the problem, or a workload that one doesn’t have control over? Do you see practical ways to reduce workload in your setting? 
• Is your setting using generative AI to reduce time spent on lesson planning? 
• What’s your experience been of the early career framework? Are early career teachers having a positive experience? 

Reading and resources

• NFER: Teacher Labour Market in England Annual Report 2025
• NFER: Government Spending Review is last chance to meet 6,500 new teacher target as unfilled teacher vacancies hit record high
• NFER: How to recruit 6,500 teachers? Modelling the potential routes to delivering Labour’s teacher supply pledge
• Need to Know: What's happening with AI in schools? 
• Need to Know: How do teachers feel about their working life?
• Need to Know: How do we attract graduates into teaching? 
• Need to Know: Teacher retention: are 30-something women at risk? 
• Need to Know: Where will we find 6,500 teachers?