PAC Report on the Teacher Workforce Shortages and 6,500 Teacher Pledge

Lack of clarity over delivery of 6,500 additional teachers pledge as report highlights impact of workforce shortfalls in disadvantaged areas

The government should look at the impact of improving teachers’ working conditions and pay as value-for-money measures to address the teacher workforce shortage. In a report following a decade of nationwide teacher shortages, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) finds that the Department for Education (DfE) lacks a coherent plan, suitable targets and sufficient evidence of what works as it seeks to improve teacher recruitment and retention.

Workload is cited as the top reason for teachers leaving their jobs, and pupil behaviour is an escalating and concerning challenge. The report finds that, while the DfE recognises this, it does not understand the root causes behind these factors including why and where workload is high. The inquiry found that the proportion of ex-teachers citing pupil behaviour as a reason for leaving rose from 32% to 44% in one year alone (2023 to 2024). While the DfE aims to address the issue through new attendance and behaviour hubs, only 17% of schools and colleges have signed the Department’s wellbeing charter.

The PAC recommends government look at changes to contractual and working conditions, such as flexible working and how teacher workload can be reduced, and for a further roll-out of behaviour hubs if they prove to be successful.

While DfE recognises pay as important in recruitment and retention, it is less clear on how it considers pay alongside other initiatives. For example, the PAC asked the DfE if it has assessed whether spending on initiatives such the Early Career Framework professional development programme (£131m in 2024-25) provides better outcomes than simply increasing teachers’ pay. The report finds that DfE has assessed the relative value for money for some of its financial incentives but has not assessed the extent to which increasing pay has a similar impact. The PAC recommends DfE should now do so, so it can make an explicit decision on whether it needs to do more to ensure teachers are paid the right amount.

In July ’24, the government pledged 6,500 additional teachers for schools and further education colleges over the course of this Parliament. The report finds that it is unclear how this pledge will be delivered, progress measured, or what achieving it will mean for existing and forecast teacher shortages. DfE could give no clear explanation of how the pledge was calculated or how it will fill existing teacher gaps, with an estimated need for up to 12,400 more teachers in colleges alone by ’28-’29. For colleges, the PAC’s report finds significant challenges are ahead in addressing the shortages here, with slightly over one in twenty positions in further education vacant in ’22-’23. The PAC is calling for more information on how the 6,500 pledge will be delivered to make sure the most critical teacher gaps are filled, and a full update on the recruitment and retention plans for further education in particular given the urgent need.

The report highlights particular challenges in teacher shortages for schools in deprived areas. The PAC’s inquiry finds that 34% of teachers in the most disadvantaged schools had less than five years of experience, compared to 20% in the least disadvantaged. In a critical issue for the government’s mission of breaking down barriers to opportunity, these schools also suffer specialist teacher shortages, such as in Computing (1.4% vacancy rate against 0.8% in secondary schools overall). Disadvantaged students risk being locked out of particular careers due to a lack of trained teachers; 31% of schools in the most disadvantaged areas do not offer Computer Science A-level (compared to 11% in the least disadvantaged), and 9% do not offer Physics A-level (1% in the least disadvantaged areas).

PAC member Sarah Olney MP said: 

“It cannot be said enough that teachers up and down the country deserve our heartfelt thanks for the job they do. Our report is the latest confirmation that this job is increasingly done in difficult circumstances, with workload burdens and challenging pupil behaviour some of the key drivers of teachers leaving the profession. The DfE told us that teaching quality makes more of a difference than teacher quantity. As reassuring arguments go, this seems difficult to believe when faced with the absence of any kind of teaching at all in certain subjects, particularly in the most disadvantaged areas. The shortfalls laid out in our report show how urgent it is that DfE lay out the detail behind its pledge for 6,500 more teachers.

“The Committee is calling for the government to take a serious look at working conditions, flexible arrangements and increased pay for teachers. It is important to stress that this Committee’s role is not to make recommendations on policy – our report makes clear that government should be exploring conditions and pay as value for money measures alongside the other recruitment and retention initiatives it is carrying out. The debate around these issues has a long history, and is far from over. If the recommendations in our report are followed, the government will have an explicit answer, based on its own analysis and evidence, on whether it is time to offer teachers more flexibility, and/or to pay them more.”

PAC report conclusions and recommendations 

It is unclear how the Department will deliver the pledge for 6,500 additional teachers, measure its progress, or what achieving the pledge will mean for existing and forecast teacher shortages. In July 2024, the government pledged 6,500 additional teachers for schools and further education colleges over the course of this Parliament. The Department could give us no clear explanation of how the pledge was calculated or how it will fill existing teacher gaps – it estimates a need for 8,400 to 12,400 more teachers in colleges alone by 2028-29. There remains no information on the baseline against which the pledge will be measured, how it will be split across schools and colleges, or the milestones that will need to be met for the Department to be on track to deliver by the end of this Parliament. The Department has signalled that further details on the pledge will be released after the Spending Review. Despite this, delivery is already underway, with the 5.5% pay award for schoolteachers in 2024-25 and increased expenditure on initiatives, described by the Department, as part of this endeavour. The Department estimates that these actions will lead to 2,500 more teachers staying and 1,000 more applying the next year. The pledge focuses on additional teachers, but the Department assured us that, alongside recruiting teachers, it would continue to focus efforts on retention and that this is not a cap or a limit on how many it will recruit. We note that recent changes to employer national insurance contributions may impact this.

Recommendation 1

The Department should set out how it plans to deliver the pledge for 6,500 additional teachers to provide assurance that this will fill the most critical teacher gaps. This should set out:

• how the pledge will be split across schools and colleges;
• the baseline and milestones so Parliament can track progress; and
• how it will stay focused on teacher retention alongside recruitment.

The Department has no clear or coherent approach bringing together its various initiatives on teacher recruitment and retention. In 2024-25, the Department had a £700 million package, excluding pay and pensions, for recruitment and retention initiatives which the Department has allocated in a way to make as much progress as possible. This includes bursaries and scholarships to recruit teachers in particular subjects (£233 million budget in 2024-25), and a two-year support package for newly qualified teachers (£131 million budget in 2024-25). It has undertaken some evaluation of its recruitment and retention initiatives, but it has still to undertake a full evaluation, including non-financial initiatives despite a recommendation by a previous Public Accounts Committee in 2016. The Department has limited evidence on the effectiveness of initiatives to improve workload or wellbeing, despite these being common reasons for teachers leaving. Given these gaps, and a lack of targets (beyond those for those starting teacher training), the Department cannot make fully informed decisions on where best to focus resources and justify funding pots. More widely, the Department has started some cross-sector thinking, as well as value for money analysis. This has been used to stop, for example, international relocation payments for trainees.

Recommendation 2

The Department should develop a whole-system strategy to help frame how it will recruit and retain school and college teachers. This should be based on a fuller evidence base, establish the preferred balance between recruitment and retention initiatives; set appropriate targets for those joining teaching through different routes; and include value for money analysis of different initiatives.

Teacher vacancies and the challenges of retaining experienced teachers are greater for schools in deprived areas, and across some core subjects, leading to inequities in provision and career opportunities. Schools and colleges decide their own staffing model and have discretion around how they chose to use funding which may, for example, lead to variances in the use of supply teachers and pupil-teacher ratios.  Schools with higher proportions of disadvantaged pupils tend to have higher turnover rates and less experienced teachers – 34% of teachers in the most disadvantaged schools had less than five years of experience, compared to 20% in the least disadvantaged schools. These schools also suffer teacher shortages in specialist subjects, such as in Computing (1.4% vacancy rate against 0.8% in secondary schools overall). This means that disadvantaged students are at risk of being locked out of particular careers due to a lack of trained teachers 31% of schools in the most disadvantaged areas do not offer Computer Science A-level (compared to 11% in the least disadvantaged areas), and 9% do not offer Physics A-level (1% in the least disadvantaged areas). This issue is critical to the government’s mission of breaking down barriers to opportunity, but the Department does not have a timescale for when we can expect to see reduced variation between schools in more and less disadvantaged areas. Challenges extend to colleges which struggle to find trained teachers in specialist subjects, such as construction, where shortages in the wider labour market increases the competition for talent and means fewer people are likely to apply.

Recommendation 3

The Department should work with schools and colleges to understand the reasons behind variations, particularly within deprived areas and core subjects, setting this out in published information to help identify and share good practice and ideas on what works best.

The Department has recently increased its focus on addressing the significant teacher gaps across further education colleges, but there remains much more to do. A shortage of further education college teachers, which impacts the type and extent of skills developed, puts the achievement of the Government’s missions for opportunity and growth at risk. In general, further education colleges, 5.1 out of every 100 positions were vacant in 2022-23 and the Department estimate that colleges will need 8,400 to 12,400 more teachers by 2028-29. Compared to schools, the workforce data kept by the Department is less detailed and complete, requiring it to make broader assumptions as part of its workforce model. The Department has begun to focus more on addressing teacher shortages in further education, describing this as now a strong focus. The Department say this includes recently providing £400 million additional funding to the sector, extending targeted retention incentives to further education from October 2024, and bringing in professionals who teach alongside working in industry. This also helps ensure students are taught the latest practices. College teacher pay remains, on average, £10,000 lower than school teacher pay. With no national pay review body, colleges set their own pay considering the funding from the Department, but colleges continue to feel there has been limited additional funding despite government’s positive messages.

Recommendation 4

Given the urgent need for further education teachers, the Department should update the Committee on its full recruitment and retention plans for the further education sector as soon as possible, including expanding dual professional and industry partnerships in areas of key skill shortages, and then every six months until summer 2028, on its progress addressing gaps.

Teachers’ working environment and conditions remain critically important to teacher retention, with workload cited as the top reason for teachers leaving, and pupil behaviour an escalating challenge. The Department does not offer payments or structured support for more experienced teachers, which means their working environment constitutes one of the main levers keeping them in the profession. The Department recognises workload as the top reason for teachers leaving and has, for example, worked with Ofsted to reduce marking requirements. However, it does not understand the root causes behind these factors including, for example, why and where workload is high. The Department does not dictate working patterns, or maternity and paternity leave, with schools and colleges making these decisions. However, there remains a lack of flexible working arrangements for teachers, although the Department has signalled an intention to raise improving maternity and paternity leave for teachers. More widely, the Department is looking to learn from the health sector on creating clearer career pathways. We are concerned about worsening pupil behaviour impacting workload and the wider environment, with the Department aiming to address this through new attendance and behaviour hubs. Only 17% of schools and colleges have signed the Department’s wellbeing charter.

Recommendation 5

The Department should work to better understand why teachers leave and then better support schools and colleges in addressing these factors. This includes looking at changes to contractual and working conditions, such as flexible working, and at how teacher workload can be reduced. It should also collect data on the effectiveness of the newly-announced behaviour hubs, rolling them out further if they prove to be successful.

The Department recognises pay as important in recruiting and retaining teachers, but is less clear on how it considers pay alongside other initiatives and how schools and colleges can afford pay rises. Pay is important in recruiting and retaining teachers. The Department’s influence on pay differs between schools and colleges, for schools, it sets pay ranges and then provides schools a funding package to be used, by schools, on pay and other areas of spend – it has assumed schools will make 1% efficiency savings in 2025-26 to afford pay rises. Colleges do not have a pay review body, setting their own salaries from the funding received. Schoolteachers have received a 17% combined pay increase from the last three pay awards. The Department has reduced its teacher trainee targets as it expects 2,500 more teachers to stay because of the most recent 5.5% pay award. The Department recognises college teachers continue to receive less than those in secondary, who earn around £10,000 more, and those in industry where, for example, IT professionals can earn over £11,000 more. The Department has assessed the relative value for money for some of its financial incentives but has not assessed the extent to which increasing pay has a similar impact. It is unclear how important the Department considers pay over, for example, the Early Career Framework in retaining teachers. It is also worth noting that teachers benefit automatically from a defined benefit pension scheme, a hugely valuable yet easily under-sold perk of the job.

Recommendation 6

The Department should assess the effectiveness and relative value-for-money of pay against other recruitment and retention initiatives, to make an explicit decision on whether it needs to do more to ensure teachers are paid the right amount.

Sector Reaction

Commenting on the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee report on teacher numbers in secondary and further education, NFER Education Workforce Lead, Jack Worth, said: 

“It is critical that the Government takes action now and delivers a comprehensive plan to tackle the issues that are impacting recruitment and retention or it will miss its 6,500 teacher recruitment pledge. Schools are anxious to see the details of the Government’s plan for supporting teacher supply.

“Addressing the teacher supply challenges in secondary and further education requires a strategic and targeted approach to improving the attractiveness of the teaching profession in key subjects and particularly in disadvantaged areas. NFER’s research echoes the importance of building a strategy around the key factors for recruitment and retention raised in this report, including teacher workload, pupil behaviour, a lack of access to flexible working arrangements and teacher pay and incentives.”

Responding to the new Public Accounts Committee report on the government’s plans to increase secondary school and further education teacher numbers, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said:

“We have welcomed the government’s intent to address the recruitment and retention crisis facing schools, but this report rightly highlights the need for a more coherent plan, supported by clear evidence, in order to achieve this.

“While there is no single silver bullet for addressing shortages of teachers and school leaders, further real-terms pay rises over the course of the Parliament to restore the value of salaries to 2010 levels are crucial if ministers are serious about making a real difference.

“The government’s own research only last month showed that almost six in 10 teachers and four in 10 school leaders who were thinking of quitting state education cited dissatisfaction with pay as one of the reasons, and salaries have deteriorated markedly compared with other gradate professions.

“If sustained pay increases are allied with action to address unsustainable workload, further boost flexible working, and fundamentally reform high-stakes Ofsted inspections which damage staff wellbeing, schools will have a far better chance of attracting and keeping hold of teachers and leaders.”

Responding to a report from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which calls on the government to look at pay and working conditions in order to reduce teacher shortages, Pepe Di’Iasio, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said:

“We completely agree with the PAC that the government should examine whether simply improving pay and working conditions would be the best route to solving teacher shortages. To its credit, the current government is boosting salaries but this follows years of real-terms pay erosion, and it hasn’t provided enough funding for next year’s pay award – which means another cut to school budgets.

“A key issue is the high workloads experienced by leaders and teachers. These are driven by issues such as funding shortages, the wide array of responsibilities placed upon schools and colleges, and an accountability system of inspections and performance tables which is utterly excessive. This has a massive impact on staff retention and means we’re constantly having to recruit huge numbers of graduates into the profession to make up for this endless churn. These targets are frequently missed.

“The impact of national teacher shortages is often most damaging in schools and colleges serving disadvantaged communities where recruitment and retention can be particularly hard. This is exactly where we most need a ready supply of teachers and leaders and the fact this is difficult to secure is a major obstacle in narrowing attainment gaps.

“The rising number of teachers leaving the profession because of pupil behaviour is also a major cause of concern. We hear from school and college leaders on a regular basis over just how challenging this issue has become in recent years. Behaviour policies are robust but there must be wider action to provide schools and colleges with specialist support and investment to address the variety as well as the complexity of needs that children and young people are exhibiting. School suspension and exclusion figures suggest that student behaviour is spiralling out of control.

“We share the concerns about the lack of clarity over the government’s pledge to deliver 6,500 new teachers. This does not seem anything like enough to address future need and we would urge ministers to address actual teacher shortages rather than fixate on a figure which is largely meaningless.”

David Hughes CBE, Chief Executive, Association of Colleges (AoC) said: 

“This is a helpful and comprehensive report and I welcome the first five recommendations. My response to recommendation six is that we have to face up to the reality that pay is the biggest barrier to recruitment and retention in FE. Until that is addressed, colleges will struggle to recruit the right staff and the government’s ambitions for skills will be thwarted.”

Jerry White, Principal and Chief Executive, City College Norwich, Paston College and Easton College said:

“I am concerned by the projected need for 8,400 to 12,400 additional teachers in further education colleges by 2028/29. With approximately 200 colleges in England, this translates to an average of 50 teachers per college, highlighting a significant and urgent need for action.

“While secondary schools face a need for 1,600 more teachers by 2027/28, the disparity in the numbers clearly shows where the most critical shortages lie. The recent investments in construction are a step in the right direction, but we must also focus on addressing the immediate and growing demand for FE teachers across all subject areas.  Setting specific recruitment targets for FE teachers, as the report suggests, could be a crucial step in driving the necessary action from government which would allow our economy to have the skills it requires to grow.

“It is essential to emphasise the rewarding nature of a career in FE teaching. Our colleges play a vital role in supporting and facilitating the swift and effective transition of professionals from industry into teaching roles, ensuring they are well-prepared to inspire and educate the next generation.”

Emma Hollis, CEO, NASBTT said:

“We welcome the publication of the Public Accounts Committee’s inquiry on Increasing teacher numbers: Secondary and further education, for which NASBTT provided written evidence (published here). The recommendations on teacher pay and flexible working, which we advocate in our manifesto The Future of Initial Teacher Training: How can we attract more people to the teaching profession and support school-based ITT providers to deliver high-quality training?, are especially supportive of our mission to support teacher recruitment and retention. However, it is interesting to note the inquiry found that the proportion of ex-teachers citing pupil behaviour as a reason for leaving rose from 32% to 44% in one year alone (2023 to 2024). This relates to the bigger discussion we are calling for on the purpose of education. Secondary school teachers are generally excited by the opportunity to deliver the subject they are passionate about – yet they end up dealing with a host of other issues. At the present time, due to the closure of wraparound services, schools are taking on ever wider roles, meaning we are asking teachers to be social workers and mental health professionals alongside a whole other host of roles outside of teaching. This state of affairs is not going to attract people to, and keep people in, the profession. If, as a society, we expect schools to take on a broader role then a fundamental re-evaluation of the system needs to take place and schools will need to be funded and staffed differently. So the question we need to be asking in partnership with government is: What is school for? Is it solely for education or something wider? In either case, training, funding and staffing needs to reflect what we really want from schools and our teachers.”