Commenting on the National Foundation for Educational Research’s 2025 Teacher Labour Market in England Annual Report, Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said:
“The government made noises on the campaign trail that they would commit to tackling recruitment and retention. The NFER points to the current trajectory being inadequate to the task. For so long as the whole system is starved of the funding it so obviously needs, schools and colleges will experience greater financial pressure and the quality of education services will remain at risk. More schools are in deficit now than at any point since 2010 and class sizes are the largest on record.
“The core drivers of teachers leaving the profession are unchanged: workload, funding, excessive accountability measures, and below-inflation pay. The profession has grown weary of successive education secretaries promising fixes that never come. The NEU is carrying out an indicative ballot of its members to gauge willingness to strike over the Government's completely unfunded recommendation of a 2.8% pay award for 2025/26. Without proper funding from Government, schools will continue to suffer and more teachers will leave.
“The Government was elected in the hope it would value education. The government has a limited window if it hopes to solve the teacher recruitment and retention crisis within this parliament. The clock is ticking.”