The new Government has decided to honour the recommendation of the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) to award a 5.5 per cent pay increase to all teachers and school leaders in England, after the outgoing Conservative Government had refused to publish the STRB report despite having received it before the General Election was called.
The 5.5 per cent pay increase would be paid in full, across all pay points and allowances and backdated to 1 September, following the statutory consultation on the 2024 edition of the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD) which ends in October. This means that most teachers and school leaders will receive the backdated pay increase in their October or November pay. This is a “consolidated” pay increase, so the 5.5 per cent would be a sustained increase setting pay on a permanently higher foundation on which future pay increases would be built.
How is the 5.5% teachers’ pay offer funded?
The Government has provided £1.2bn to cover of the pay award for support staff offered by the NJC and for the teachers’ pay award of 5.5 per cent. The funding covers the financial year 2024-25.
The Government has yet to decide school funding for 2025-26 but commited to take into account the full year's costs of the teacher pay award on schools when considering budgets.
The funding provided by the Treasury will cover the full cost of the teachers’ pay rise at a national level, as well as the cost of the current support staff pay offer.
How much progress does the 5.5% pay offer represent?
The 5.5 per cent pay increase recommendation is significantly above inflation and requires additional Government funding beyond what the previous administration had budgeted for teacher and school leader pay.
Our key message that pay improvements are vital to addressing the teacher recruitment and retention crisis and repairing the damage to teacher living standards has shifted the debate on teacher pay.
We think that this is the best offer we will get through negotiation – and that the other unions are likely to accept the offer. Our campaign for fully funded increases to restore the pay lost in real terms since 2010 will continue, building on our success in winning the 5.5 per cent increase this year.
How does the 5.5% increase compare to inflation?
Latest inflation forecasts suggest that a 5.5 per cent pay increase would be significantly above inflation in the third quarter of 2024 (RPI 2.5 per cent, CPI 1.6 per cent).
With teacher pay having been cut by some 25 per cent against RPI inflation between 2010 and 2023, the 5.5 per cent increase would be only the first step in the major correction to teacher and school leader pay needed.
How does a 5.5% increase compare with pay increases in the wider economy?
A 5.5 per cent increase is higher than the latest Labour Research Department figure of 5 per cent for average pay settlements in the wider economy.
Pay settlement figures are the appropriate comparators when considering the economic context for the 5.5 per cent teacher cost of living pay increase.
The 5.5 per cent increase compares well to other groups of public sector workers covered by review bodies (e.g. 5.5 per cent for nurses, 5 per cent for prison officers, 5 per cent for senior civil servants, 4.75 per cent for police).
The increase for armed forces is 6 per cent, and the increase for doctors and dentists is 6 per cent plus £1000, though this follows two years when pay increases for both of these groups were lower than for teachers (in 2022 and 2023).
How does a 5.5% rise in teacher pay in England compare to teacher pay rises in Wales and Scotland?
On 10 September, the Welsh Government confirmed that the pay offer in Wales for 2024-25 is also 5.5%. The Independent Wales Pay Review Body (IWPRB) had recommended a 4.3% increase, but the Welsh Government increased this to 5.5% due to the “no detriment” principle, which means that teacher pay rises in Wales keep pace with those in England.
In Scotland, the teacher unions have agreed to accept a pay increase of 4.27% for 2024-25. The 4.27% increase in Scotland means that a 5.5% increase in England would close the pay gap compared with Scotland to a small extent, though the pay gap will remain significant and unacceptable. Nevertheless, thanks to the efforts of NEU members there would be a reduction in the gap instead of the further widening which would have resulted from the Conservative Government’s plans for a paltry increase in England. Our campaign to win better pay, recover the pay lost in real terms and remove the gap between teacher pay in England and Scotland altogether must continue.
I’m worried about performance-related pay (PRP) as well as pay levels – don’t we need to address that too?
The new Government has agreed to remove the obligation on maintained schools to use PRP. The 2024 STPCD, which maintained schools must follow and which many academies replicate, will reflect this change. Academies already have the freedom not to use PRP and a significant number have removed PRP.
These developments represent a major shift in our favour. We will be supporting NEU reps and members in removing PRP in favour of automatic pay progression to reflect members' development of experience and expertise.
The new Government must reflect the consensus in the profession on this key issue and take steps to abolish PRP in teaching altogether, implementing in its place a fair national pay structure embedding equal pay for work of equal value.