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What is the Supply Teachers and Education Recruitment framework?
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The Supply Teachers and Education Recruitment framework

In short
RM6376 is a government procurement framework for buying agency supply staff, live since May 2026 and run by the Government Commercial Agency. From September 2026 the Academy Trust Handbook requires trusts to use it unless they have an alternative compliant arrangement at rates no higher than the framework’s.

What it is

A framework agreement is a pre-negotiated route to market: suppliers are assessed and admitted, and terms including maximum fees are agreed centrally, so individual schools and trusts do not each have to run their own procurement.

The Supply Teachers and Education Recruitment framework, reference RM6376, covers agency supply staff for schools. It went live in May 2026.

The September 2026 requirement

When the Academy Trust Handbook is published in September 2026, it will require trusts to use RM6376 for their supply staffing unless they have an alternative compliant arrangement with rates that do not exceed those available through the framework.

  • The requirement sits at trust level, with spend aggregated across the schools in the trust.
  • An alternative arrangement is permitted where its rates are no higher than the framework’s.
  • The published guidance does not set out an equivalent mandatory requirement for maintained schools.

The fee caps, and what they are not

The framework caps the maximum daily supplier fee by role type – for example £55 for senior roles, £45 for STEM teachers, £40 for non-STEM teachers, £38 for SEND educational support staff and £32 for admin and clerical.

Read this carefully. The cap is on the supplier fee, the agency’s margin. It is not a cap on what supply workers are paid, and it is not a day rate for a supply teacher. A £45 STEM cap means the agency may add up to £45 a day, not that the teacher receives £45.

Check before you act

Procurement rules change, and this page summarises published guidance rather than giving procurement advice. Work from the current Academy Trust Handbook, the Government Commercial Agency listing for RM6376, and DfE’s Buying for Schools guidance.

Last checked: 16 August 2026.

📊 See the fee caps and framework detail

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.