What is a ‘shortage subject’?

In short

A shortage subject is one where schools persistently struggle to recruit enough teachers, and where the government therefore concentrates financial incentives. In practice these are subjects like physics, maths, chemistry, computing and, at times, languages and design & technology.

“Shortage subject” is a widely-used descriptive term rather than a single fixed statutory list. The working definition is: the subjects the DfE targets with the highest bursaries and scholarships and where recruitment most often falls short of the trainee need.

The evidence for a shortage is not just recruitment. A subject can meet its trainee target yet still rely heavily on non-specialist teachers (physics is the classic example), or show pressure through vacancies. The Teacher Workforce Explorer shows recruitment, specialist teaching and vacancies side by side so you can weigh them together.

📊 See each subject’s workforce profile

Sources & how this was made

Key official sources: the Department for Education’s Get Into Teaching and Teach in Further Education services, and GOV.UK guidance on initial teacher training, qualified teacher status, FE initial teacher education funding and the Early Career Teacher Entitlement; the Society for Education and Training on QTLS; and DfE statistics (School Workforce in England, the ITT Census, Teacher demand and postgraduate trainee need, and the Further education workforce releases) on Explore Education Statistics, under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Last reviewed: 15 August 2026. Teacher training rules, funding and figures change – always confirm current details with Get Into Teaching and GOV.UK.

How this was made: developed and cross-checked with AI assistance alongside expert human review by tutor2u. It is an independent, plain-English guide, not official DfE guidance.