An above inflation, fully funded, multi-year pay award for all
teachers and school leaders in England is needed to address the
crisis in teacher numbers.
The NASUWT-The Teachers' Union has today
submitted detailed evidence on the 2025/26 pay award to the
School Teachers' Review Body (STRB), which makes recommendations
on teachers' pay to the Secretary of State for Education.
The evidence sets out the case for a real-terms pay rise for
teachers and leaders, fully funded by Government, along with
improvements to pay and working conditions for permanent and
supply teachers in order to address the attractiveness and
competitiveness of teaching as a long-term career.
NASUWTs' written evidence sets out the evidence base for:
- a multi-year, above-inflation (RPI) pay award;
- additional funding from the Government to enable all schools
to implement the pay award in full;
- full-time TLR payments for part-time teachers;
- the removal of threshold application and renaming of U1-U3 to
M7-M9;
- the reintroduction of pay portability;
- creation of a National Commission on Pay in Schools;
- statutory minimum national pay scale for all state funded
schools;
- removal of unlimited work hours;
- annual pay gap reporting with associated action plans to be
published by employers for gender and race; and
- restoration of supply pools across England on a not for
profit basis.
Dr Patrick Roach, NASUWT General Secretary,
said:
“Teachers are looking to the Review Body to assert its
independence and act on the evidence of the adverse impact which
the years of pay erosion under the Conservative Government have
had on the recruitment and retention of teachers and on the
ability to maintain world-class standards of education provision.
“There is a crisis of teacher supply, with fewer graduates
choosing to enter the profession and with large numbers of
teachers leaving the profession prematurely. Ending the
recruitment and retention crisis requires investment and cannot
be delivered on the cheap.
“If the Government is going to meet its target to recruit 6,500
more teachers we need a longer term plan for pay restoration that
will deliver on the Government's ambitions and ensure that the
profession attracts and retains the teachers needed.
“The STRB has the opportunity to make recommendations that will
make teaching the profession of first choice for UK graduates
once again.”
