Shifting career preferences not to blame for worsening teacher shortages – study

Shifting career preferences among young people in the UK are not to blame for worsening teacher shortages, a report has said.

Increasingly non-competitive pay, high workload and a lack of flexible working options are “much more likely” to be driving prospective graduates away from the teaching profession, according to an analysis by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER).

Maintaining the status quo “risks further entrenching the teacher supply crisis and deteriorating the quality of education provided to pupils”, the paper warns.

The NFER says ensuring teaching remains competitive with other jobs “should be a central plank” of the new Government’s plans to address shortages.

It comes as teachers and school leaders in England wait to hear the Government’s pay offer for September.

Figures published in December suggested just 50% of the Government’s initial teacher training target for secondary subjects was reached last year, down from 57% in 2022/23.

The analysis, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, uses survey data to explore the question of how shifting career motivations might be contributing to the teacher supply challenge.

The paper, authored by NFER school workforce lead Jack Worth and NFER economist Dawson McClean, concluded: “Overall, we find there is little evidence that young people’s career motivations in the UK have significantly changed over the last decade to the detriment of teacher supply.

“Our findings suggest interest in teaching among full-time students has varied over time. However, the proportion of young people who say they want to be a teacher has been generally consistent in the decade since 2011.

“There has also been a slight increase in the proportion of young people who consider pro-social factors such as ‘helping others’ and ‘contributing to society’ to be very important factors for their career choices.”

Young people born in 1997 and later (commonly defined as Generation Z) are slightly more likely to fit the motivational profile of a future teacher than Millennials, according to the report.

The report added: “The findings therefore suggest that there is no evidence of any significant drop in interest either in teaching or in the fundamental ‘pro-social’ nature of the job.

“Instead, the findings affirm that addressing the deteriorating attractiveness of the teaching profession is key to solving the teacher shortage challenge.”

Researchers looked at data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study and the British Household Panel Survey to assess what jobs young people wanted and what factors they would consider to be an important part of their future careers.

The analysis concluded: “Taken together, our modelling and analysis suggests there is little evidence graduates have become less interested in ‘pro-social’ careers in recent years.

“This means shifting career preferences, over which policymakers have little control, are unlikely to be a significant factor underpinning persistent teacher under-recruitment.

“Instead, it is much more likely factors such as increasingly uncompetitive pay, high workload and a lack of flexible working options which are driving prospective graduates away from the teaching profession.”

It added: “Ensuring teaching remains competitive with other jobs in pay and workload should be a central plank of the new Government’s plans to address teacher recruitment.

“Maintaining the status quo risks further entrenching the teacher supply crisis and deteriorating the quality of education provided to pupils.”

Last week, the Department for Education (DfE) said Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson had begun work to recruit 6,500 new teachers as part of “resetting the Government’s relationship with the sector and transforming the image of teaching”.

But the Government has yet to publish the recommendations of the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB), or its decision on whether to accept them.

On Tuesday, Ms Phillipson said the Government would not be announcing its pay award for teachers this week – which is the last week of term for many schools in England.

National Education Union members staged eight days of strike action in state schools in England last year in a pay dispute.

In July last year, the Government agreed to implement the STRB’s recommendation of a 6.5% increase for teachers in England, and co-ordinated strike action by four unions was called off.

Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “Despite worsening teacher shortages posing a real threat to educational standards, there is cause for optimism as a result of this report.

“NFER’s analysis suggests the number of young people interested in teaching, and similar careers that benefit others, is broadly stable or even slightly increasing.

“There is therefore no reason why the government’s ambition of recruiting 6,500 teachers cannot be achieved or surpassed, providing the right steps are taken to put teaching on an equal footing with other graduate professions.

“This means offering pay that is comparable to other graduate jobs and ensuring manageable workloads across the board.”

A DfE spokesperson said: “Recruiting and keeping great teachers in our classroom is vital to improving life chances for all children.

“Work has already begun to urgently recruit 6,500 new teachers. We will focus on getting more teachers into shortage subjects, supporting areas that face the largest recruitment challenges, and retaining the brilliant teachers already in classrooms.

“The Education Secretary has also been clear she wants to reset the Government’s relationship with the sector- she spoke directly to over 14,000 people from the workforce this week in the first of many regular engagements and has committed to working alongside them to re-establish teaching as an attractive and expert profession.”