• Education Secretary accepts schoolteachers’ pay body recommendation giving teachers a 4% pay award from this September
• Colleges to also benefit from extra cash to invest in the specialist teachers they need
• Comes as government ramps up work to drive up school standards and recruit 6,500 additional teachers across schools and colleges

Teachers will receive a 4% pay boost from September, after the Education Secretary accepted the teachers’ pay body recommendation in full today (22 May) marking a major step toward delivering 6,500 teachers by the end of Parliament.

The independent School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) recommended a pay award of 4% for 2025/26 academic year, building on the 5.5% pay award made last year.

Like the rest of the public sector, schools and colleges will need to play their part in getting maximum value from every pound of public money. Schools and colleges will be expected to find the first 1% of the pay award through improved productivity and smarter spending with the government providing significant additional investment of £615 million. Many schools and colleges are already making savings and driving costs down including the 400 schools who took part in the department’s new energy deal which will save them 36% on average.

The government has also taken tough but fair choices to afford the above inflation pay award – reducing budgets, ending the tax breaks enjoyed by private schools and ending programmes that are not delivering value for money, so every pound is spent on driving high and rising standards for our children.

The pay boost builds on the work already underway to deliver on the government’s commitment as part of its Plan for Change to drive high and rising standards for every child, in every school and college. This includes a stronger accountability system through reforms to Ofsted inspection, new regional improvement teams to tackle poorly performing schools and colleges, and a new, rich and broad curriculum so pupils are set up for life, work and the future.

£160 million will also be provided to colleges and providers of 16-19 education. The cash will help them to address immediate priorities, including recruiting and retaining expert teachers in subject areas such as construction and manufacturing so more young people gain the skills needed to drive economic growth and deliver the workforce which businesses and public services need.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said:

“Teachers have been overstretched and undervalued for far too long but from my first day in office, I have made it my priority to back them so that teaching is restored as the highly valued profession it should be.

“This pay award for schools backed by major investment alongside funding for further education is in recognition of the crucial role teachers play in breaking the link between background and success and will support schools and colleges to invest in the workforce they need, so every young person achieves and thrives.  

“As part of our Plan for Change, we are already seeing green shoots, with two thousand more secondary school teachers training this year than last and more teachers forecasted to stay in the profession.”

Through its Plan for Change the government is determined to ensure there are more expert teachers in front of classrooms, so every child and young person has access to an excellent education.

Hundreds of millions of pounds are also being invested to offer tax free financial incentives and professional development to attract and keep the best and brightest teachers across the country, alongside targeted action to improve teachers’ workload and wellbeing.

There are encouraging signs that this is working with two thousand more secondary school teachers training this year than last, a 25% increase in the number of people accepting teacher training places in STEM subjects, and more teachers forecasted to stay in the profession.

Alongside the significant investment announced today the government has been clear that it will support leaders to get best value from their funding including by offering schools and colleges a suite of productivity initiatives to help them slash the costs on things like energy, banking and recruitment so every penny is invested on delivering opportunities for young people.

Through its landmark Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, the government is also legislating so every parent can be confident of a core high quality education offer for their child – ensuring that all children learn from a cutting-edge curriculum and are taught by an excellent qualified teacher.

Sector Reaction

AoC chief executive David Hughes CBE said:

“This extra funding aimed at supporting colleges to be able to match the pay increase recommended for school teachers is great news and very welcome.

 “As well as supporting a stronger pay offer, colleges will use this to address the particular challenges they face around recruitment and retention of staff in priority sectors like construction, engineering and digital. I am also pleased that there is a funding boost targeted at helping more disadvantaged students and those doing GCSE resits – this cohort faces a whole range of barriers in their learning. This should help colleges to recruit and retain the staff needed to deliver to the often thousands of young people taking resits in English and maths. 

 “This is the first time that college pay has been considered by the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) and it is significant, on the back of that, that the Secretary of State has secured the investment needed to help colleges match the pay recommendation for school staff. It is a strong signal that the government recognises the vital role colleges play in helping to deliver its missions – on growth, opportunity, the NHS, clean energy and safer streets.” 

Gerry McDonald CBE, Chair of the Association of Colleges Employment Policy Group and Group Principal and CEO of New City College said:

“Colleges work hard to recruit and retain great staff and we want to pay our staff the wage they deserve. The funding announced today is a step towards being able to do just that: it means that the gap between school teachers’ pay and pay for college staff will not continue to increase. While we are encouraged by this announcement, we await the detail and urge ministers to recognise the excellent work of the whole further education sector in their funding decisions.”  

Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said: 

“It is testament to the strength of feeling in the profession that government have moved from their initial recommendation of a 2.8% pay rise to the 4% announced today. 

“Whilst we acknowledge and welcome additional funding to that initially offered by government, it is still the case that the pay award is not fully funded.  

“In many schools this will mean cuts in service provision to children and young people, job losses, and additional workloads for an already overstretched profession. 

“The NEU will never accept cuts to education. Children deserve a fully-resourced education and government should see education as an investment in the country’s future not a cost. 

“Whilst teachers and school leaders know there are no ‘efficiencies’ to be made at a school level there is wastage at a system level resulting from the fragmentation to the education system caused by academisation. 

“We will press the government to tackle these system level issues starting with capping CEO pay, introducing national energy contracts for schools, and ending the supply agency rip off. 

“Unless the government commit to fully funding the pay rise then it is likely that the NEU will register a dispute with the government on the issue of funding, and campaign to ensure every parent understands the impact of a cut in the money available to schools, and that every politician understands this too. 

“We welcome steps outlined today around flexible working and TLRs. Teaching is a profession made up of 76 per cent women and it is right that issues that most impact upon women are addressed as a matter of urgency.” 

NFER School Workforce Lead, Jack Worth, said:

“We welcome the Government’s teacher pay award of 4 per cent as it recognises the crucial value of teachers in our society and will help to improve teacher recruitment and retention.

“While we also welcome the funding the Government has announced to cover the additional 1.2 per cent above its initial proposal to School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB), requiring schools to find efficiencies to fund some of this pay rise puts extra strain on school budgets that are already very tight.

“We encourage the Government to make additional funding available at the spending review for schools over this parliament to deliver the 6,500 teacher pledge and support schools to provide a high-quality education for all pupils.

“We are also pleased to see the Government announce an additional £160m for further education colleges and providers, as this could enable FE teacher pay to keep pace with teacher pay and avoid falling further behind in competitiveness than it already is.”

UCU General Secretary Jo Grady said:

“For far too long colleges have been education’s Cinderella service. As a bare minimum, college staff must be given the same uplift as school teachers as a step towards closing the pay gap between schools and colleges.

“The additional 16-19 funding is welcome, but will fall short of what the sector needs given an additional 60,000 16-19 yr old students are projected to enter the sector over the next two years.

“College bosses must use this funding and the now confirmed relief in NI employer contributions National Insurance employer contributions to look at pay again, which continues to be a barrier to recruiting and retaining highly skilled FE staff.”

Munira Wilson MP, Liberal Democrat Education, Children and Families Spokesperson, said:

“The Government is building castles in the sky if it thinks that schools have any more “efficiencies” to make.

“By deciding not to fully fund this pay rise, the Government are gouging millions out of threadbare school pockets. When schools are already struggling to make ends meet — forced to strip out vital subjects and ask teachers and parents to pay personally for classroom essentials — this could cause a tidal wave of redundancies.

“The Government must commit to fully funding the pay recommendations they’ve made or admit they’re making hollow promises that will worsen, not improve, the crisis in our schools.”

Natalie Perera, CEO at the Education Policy Institute (EPI), said:

“The decision by the government to implement the STRB recommendation in full is welcome and recognises the hard work of teachers across the country. Maintaining above inflation pay increments is also an important factor in addressing the recruitment and retention challenges faced by the sector. We also welcome the additional funding going to the early years and further education colleges. 

“However, finding 1% in efficiency savings could be difficult for some schools, particularly small schools, those with longer serving teachers and those who need to employ a larger number of teaching assistants in order to meet statutory requirements for children with Education, Health and Care Plans.

“At a time when the disadvantage gap is widening and child poverty is increasing, we cannot risk schools cutting vital staff or narrowing their curriculum or pastoral offers for their pupils.

“While we welcome that the DfE has found an additional £615m to cover some of the cost of the teacher pay award, we are also concerned that this has been found from within existing DfE budgets. We need more information on what has been cut in order to find this funding.

“Overall, while this represents some positive news for the education sector, there will still be considerable concern about how some schools will find further savings to meet this commitment and the unanswered question about what else has been cut in the education department.”

Stacey Booth, GMB National Officer, said:

“School support staff are the forgotten army who look after our children, feed them and nurture them.

“They are shockingly badly paid and it’s a scandal this pay award means they will fall even further behind teachers.

“Our members demand parity with teachers.

“This is yet another crystal clear example of why we desperately need to reinstate the School Support Staff Negotiating body as soon as possible.”

IFS Associate Director Ben Zaranko said:

“Last year’s public sector pay deals were above what had been budgeted for – so far above that, to pay for them, the new government felt it had to substantially top up departmental budgets after taking office. his year, pay awards are once again above what departments declared would be affordable, but not to anything like the same extent. In particular, the fact that the 3.6% pay award for most NHS staff – by far the largest group – isn’t a million miles away from the 2.8% increase that the department said was affordable, will limit the fiscal impact. Pay awards elsewhere, for teachers and prison officers, are a little higher at 4%, reflecting persistent difficulties with recruiting and retaining staff in those areas.

“The gap will, nonetheless, need to be plugged from somewhere. It may be that public service leaders are able to eke out additional efficiency savings to make the sums add up. For the NHS, the government has said that achieving pre-existing productivity targets for this year should be sufficient to avoid cutting frontline services. Schools will still need to find savings totalling about 1% of their budgets to afford these rises, even after additional grant funding from government. It could be that efficiency savings prove insufficient and further savings have to be found from elsewhere, including from capital budgets, which might impede efforts to boost public service productivity. 

“Higher pay this year also means higher pay in future , meaning today’s announcements have implications for the settlements that will be announced in the forthcoming Spending Review on June 11. And, if agreeing pay settlements this year was tough, when day-to-day funding is increasing by an average of 2.5% in real terms, then agreeing pay deals next year, with planned funding growth of 1.8%, will be even harder.”

On the teacher pay awards specifically, IFS Research Fellow Luke Sibieta said:

“Today’s pay awards of 4% for teachers and 3.2% for support staff are both above the government’s initial offer of 2.8%. However, average earnings growth is currently expected to be 3.7% for this year, which is more than was previously expected. These pay offers are likely to represent small real-terms rises, given that inflation is expected to be about 3% for the current year as a whole.

“The government is providing an extra grant to schools to help cover most of the costs. However, to afford the pay offer, schools will still need to find savings elsewhere of around £400 million or just less than 1% of their budgets. This is a bit less than was assumed a few months ago in the government’s proposals to the pay review body, which will probably come as a slight relief to schools.

“Given that the pay offer is only just above inflation, the real-terms cuts to most teacher salaries since 2010 still remain in place. Following on from these pay rises, most teacher salaries will be about 8% lower in real-terms than in 2010. However, because of recent boosts to starting salaries, salary levels for new teachers will be about 1% above their 2010 level in real-terms.”

Bill Watkin, Chief Executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, said:

“Colleges will be very pleased to receive this welcome funding boost. The decision to extend the funding uplift to colleges as well as schools reflects the principle established in the settlement of our recent legal action that schools and colleges will not be treated differently from each other in this regard.

“We hope this additional funding will enable us to reach a pay settlement for staff in sixth form colleges, and avoid the strike action that disrupted the education of so many young people earlier this year. While details of the funding still need to be confirmed, including colleges is an important step and raising the rate is the most effective way of ensuring that all students benefit from any increases in 16 to 19 funding.”

Pepe Di’Iasio, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said:

“We are pleased the government has accepted the recommendation of the pay review body as this is crucial for boosting teacher recruitment and retention.

“We also welcome the additional funding allocated to partially cover the cost of the pay award and recognise the difficult financial situation in which the government is working.

“The government has also improved matters with regards to the timing of the award which in past years under the previous government was announced far too late for schools to be able to plan budgets accordingly.

“However, the fact is that the funding allocated to schools does not fully cover the cost of this pay award – so this represents a further cut to school budgets which are already under a great deal of pressure.

“If the government really thinks it will be possible to bridge this funding gap through ‘improved productivity and smarter spending’ then it is mistaken. Schools have already spent many years cutting costs to the bone and beyond.

“The most likely outcome is that there will be further cuts to educational provision.

“We welcome the additional funding for colleges and other 16-19 providers. It is imperative that colleges are able to at least match school pay awards, given that the salaries of FE college teachers have fallen a long way behind those of school teachers because of lack of sufficient funding.

“Colleges are the engine room of the skills revolution the government wants to see. This is crucial for the nation’s future prosperity and the life chances of the young people they serve. They must be able to attract teachers.”

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said:

“We are pleased to see that the teachers’ pay review body has again listened to our evidence and recommended a pay award higher than the DfE’s initial recommendation, and that the government has accepted that recommendation.

“While there remains some way to go to achieve full pay restoration, this uplift is another step in the right direction. Further investment is critical to recruiting and retaining the high-quality professionals that the nation’s children need.

“However, school leaders are rightly concerned about the affordability of this year’s pay uplift. The news that the schools will be receiving additional funding to help cover some of the costs is welcome, but they will remain concerned that they will still need to find a proportion from within their existing budget allocations.

“NAHT welcomes the timeliness of the STRB’s work, government’s decision making, and a consultation period that will conclude in time for pay decisions to be implemented for the start of the new academic year. This represents a refreshing change from the past and demonstrates respect for the school workforce – easing the workload burden on leaders and their staff caused by routinely late remits.

“Moving forwards, we are keen to discuss with government the possibility of a future multi-year approach to pay and funding that gives greater certainty for teachers, leaders and government alike.  This would provide valuable space to devise a new and effective pay system to meet government’s ambition to restore teaching as a high-quality graduate career choice.

“As we always do, NAHT will now be seeking the views of its members on today’s announcement.”

Kevin Fitzgerald, UK MD of Employment Hero said:

“The announcement of a 4% pay rise for teachers is welcome in principle, but the reality on the ground tells a very different story. Our real-time data shows education wages dropped 6.3% in April alone, making it the worst-hit sector in the UK.

“We saw the same pattern after the October budget. Despite the announcement of a 2.8% public sector pay increase, our data captured a double-digit fall in wages across the education sector in the weeks that followed. The rise in employment costs didn’t lift pay – it triggered cost-cutting measures that disproportionately hit teachers.

“At the same time, full-time education roles are down 2.7% year-on-year, while part-time and casual positions have surged over 30%. This shift points to schools under immense financial pressure, increasingly turning to short-term staffing.

“The concern now is déjà vu. The government has committed to part-funding the latest pay rise, but schools will still need to plug the gap themselves. If the October budget is any indication, we risk seeing the same outcome: more job instability, lower real wages and classrooms staffed by a rotating cast of temporary teachers. That kind of instability doesn’t serve teachers, schools or students.”

Russell Hobby, CEO of Teach First, said:

“The government has listened to the concerns of the sector and responded with a significant uplift in teacher pay. At a time when recruitment and retention challenges are more severe than ever, this increase – and the commitment to fund most of it – is a welcome move.

“However, asking schools to find an extra one percent will hit those serving the poorest communities hardest. These schools already face the toughest challenges, making this request a further blow to their already thin budgets. This announcement must be the beginning of a sustainable and longer-term commitment to valuing teachers and tackling the workforce challenges facing schools, particularly in the poorest communities.”