The state of teachers’ pay and proposals for reform

Executive summary

This report was prepared for the NEU by Incomes Data Research during summer 2026.

Key findings and recommendations

Recruitment and retention of teachers

• We found that vacancies have fallen but by subject they remain significantly high compared to pre-pandemic levels.
• These are not simply the result of wider labour market changes but are also linked to recruitment issues and the attractiveness of teaching as a profession.
• Pupil-teacher ratios remain elevated and compare poorly to EU figures.
• Recruitment targets for primary teachers have been met in the recent period but this is not the case for secondary teachers.
• Retention rates for teachers worsen over time (years after qualifying).
• Both recruitment and retention issues are linked to and may depend on pay comparisons that are unfavourable to teaching and the structure of pay and progression for teachers.

Competitiveness of teacher pay

• Teacher pay is less financially competitive than that for many alternative graduate careers. While qualified teachers are paid slightly more than graduates entering training programmes, they fall behind graduates on completion of those programmes and on moving into their first substantive role. Although teachers briefly move ahead after three years, this is not sustained and graduates typically earn more after five years.
• Teacher pay is generally below market rates for jobs of a comparable size and other graduate professions. Entry points on both MPR and UPR are below the market lower quartile for jobs of a comparable size, and analysis of ASHE data shows that gross annual earnings for primary and secondary teachers rank towards the bottom of the panel of comparator professions.
• Teachers’ pay is relatively more competitive earlier on, but again, analysis of ASHE data shows substantially greater earnings potential for comparator professions. Across the comparator professions, annual earnings at the upper quartile exceed secondary teachers by an average of 32.7% and primary teachers by 40.6%, highlighting weaker long-term earnings prospects within teaching. This finding is consistent with the wider evidence on the relative position of teachers’ pay over time. The STRB notes that teacher pay has reduced since 2010 relative to average earnings across the whole economy, the public sector and other professional occupations.

Effectiveness of the current pay structure

• We found that the structure of pay for classroom teachers does not properly support their career development, motivation or retention.
• While the structure acts as a scale in practice, rather than a ‘range’, the fact that the points remain ‘advisory’ is a weakness.
• The continued existence of the threshold is a major negative.
• We regard U3 as the fully effective rate for the job, although teachers typically take considerably longer to reach this rate than employees in many other graduate professions, with gender differences also evident in progression.
• Performance-related progression has operated mainly to slow teachers’ career development, with negative effects on motivation and retention. In some cases, decisions to withhold or delay progression have been influenced by schools’ funding positions, meaning that teachers’ pay progression can be affected by financial circumstances entirely outside their control.

Fairness and equality

• Four features of the current teacher pay system are likely contributors to differences in pay outcomes: appraisal-based pay progression (especially at and after the ‘threshold’); local discretion over starting salaries following the removal of statutory pay portability; the allocation of discretionary payments such as TLRs; and access to promotion into higher-paid leadership roles.
• Improving fairness and equality is likely to require a combination of national and local action. Potential approaches include improving transparency and consistency in progression, recruitment and promotion; increasing access to higher-paid roles; supporting flexible working; and strengthening workforce monitoring.

A future pay framework

• Other approaches to pay and progression should be considered.
• In particular, the threshold should be removed and there should be much faster progression to the rate for the job.
• All pay points should be mandatory and genuinely portable.
• Change will require new governance arrangements to allow for collective discussions around pay structure reform, involving all relevant parties.