Tackling teacher shortages: starting salary to be raised to £26k

Starting salaries for teachers in England will rise to £26,000 in September of this year. The government has also promised that this figure will reach £30,000 in two years’ time, with these changes made with the aim of attracting more graduates to, and improving the status of, teaching as a profession.

Teaching unions welcomed the news as a step in the right direction, but called for similar wage increases across the entire teaching workforce. Experienced teachers and school leaders will get a pay rise of 2.5% this year, which critics have warned will do little to stem the mass exodus of teachers from England’s classrooms.

“We are currently haemorrhaging teachers from the profession and we will never solve the teacher supply crisis unless this situation is improved,” commented Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders.

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, pointed out that the proposed 2.5% pay increase for existing teachers was likely to barely meet the level of RPI inflation. “The government should know from teachers’ reaction to previous differentiated pay increases that this announcement will create widespread dismay. With teacher retention problems worsening, this is a devastating message for experienced and dedicated teachers.”

The government claims that the wage increase represents the biggest sustained pay increase since 2005, and it expects the changes will help to retain more than 1,000 extra teachers per year by 2022/23.

Teachers to get starting salary of £26,000 from September (The Daily Mail) DfE recommends £26k starting salaries and 2.5% rise for heads (Schools Week) Teachers to get pay rise in attempt to boost recruitment (The Guardian) Salaries for new teachers set to rise to £26,000 from September to tackle shortages (The Independent)

Why should this matter to me? Schools are clearly keen to recruit new teachers, so they may be open to hearing about CPD or staff-enrichment products that could give their school a tactical edge. This story also highlights, once again, the fact that teachers are leaving the profession across the UK – it may be that schools are keen to learn about potential resilience training, culture-shifting or workload-reducing products when framed by this angle of promoting staff wellbeing.