FE Teacher Workforce: Progress made, but Shortages Persist

Ensuring that the further education (FE) sector has a high-quality teaching workforce is critical to the government’s ambitions for the sector and its wider industrial strategy.

NFER recently published our annual FE teacher workforce report. The evidence pointed to a chronically underpaid workforce, with vacancy rates four times higher than those in secondary schools and even higher in critical subjects like construction, manufacturing and health care. We called for additional funding for the FE sector and further measures targeting key subjects.

Last week, the Department for Education (DfE) published new data on FE teachers. What does it show?

1. Halfway to 6,500 new teachers

One of the government’s key manifesto commitments was to recruit 6,500 more teachers. DfE’s definition includes teachers in FE colleges and school-based providers, plus those in secondary and special schools.

The figures show there were 1,650 more full-time equivalent (FTE) FE teachers in 2024/25 than the year before. This is an increase of 4%, a large jump for a single year.

Indeed, it is larger than the 685 increase in total FE teacher headcount, which seems counter-intuitive. This is explained by the fact that teachers with variable-hour contracts are not included in the FTE total. Therefore, teachers shifting from variable-hour to fixed-hour contracts effectively get measured as new teachers, contributing to the FTE measure.

Combined with school teacher data, this means the government added 4,000 more teachers towards its 6,500 target between 2023/24 and 2024/25, which is 60% achieved in the first year.   

2. Sustained vacancies in key subjects

While teacher numbers are increasing, the new data shows there are still significant shortages across the FE sector. This hampers colleges’ ability to meet students’ learning needs.

The latest data shows that 3.5% of all teacher roles were unfilled vacancies in 2024/25, which is slightly better than 3.9% in 2023/24.

However, priority subjects like construction, engineering and manufacturing again disappointingly had some of the highest vacancy rates. The government’s targeted retention incentive for early career FE teachers targets these subjects, among others. The payments started in 2024/25, so the new data represents our first opportunity to explore what impact they are having.

At first glance, it is not encouraging that these key subjects continue to have high vacancy rates. However, recent survey evidence suggests that the payments are making a difference for eligible FE teachers. We have been commissioned by DfE to do a deeper dive into the data to give a more robust assessment of the policy’s impact.

3. Exit rates continue to be very high

Tackling shortages in the FE sector is not just about recruiting more teachers – retaining existing staff can help too.

In our report, we said exit rates had been high and climbing during the 2010s, but no data had been released recently. We called on DfE to start publishing FE teacher exit rates regularly, which they are now doing.

DfE estimates that 15% of FE teachers left colleges between 2023/24 and 2024/25. This aligns with another recent DfE analysis using different data, which showed that FE teacher exit rates had improved over the last five years, down from 17.3% in 2018/19 to 14.7% in 2023/24.

This is good news, but it is not a time for complacency. Exit rates appear to still be significantly higher than the exit rates of secondary school teachers (which have fallen too) and are highest for younger FE teachers. This suggests DfE and the sector has further to go in improving retention, particularly for newer teachers.

Conclusions

The new workforce data reinforces many of the messages from our annual report. Despite some growth in FE teacher numbers, there are still significant shortages in key areas and exit rates are high. The government should continue to ramp up its support for the sector, above and beyond growth in student numbers, so providers can make FE teaching more financially appealing to attract and retain the teachers they need.  

By Michael Scott, Senior Economist at the National Foundation for Educational Research(NFER)