Teacher Workforce Insights

Advertised teacher vacancies have fallen by well over a third since their 2023 peak. That is a real improvement, but a vacancy count is a narrower measure than it first appears.

Secondary teacher training recruitment reached 89% of target overall in 2025/26. That average conceals a spread running from 30% of target to more than 200%.

Nine in ten newly qualified teachers are still in state-funded schools a year later. Ten years on, it is closer to six in ten – and the medium term is where the decline has quietly worsened.

Two official measures of the same workforce can move in opposite directions in the same year. Knowing which one a figure refers to changes what it means.

Missing a recruitment target is usually read as too few people wanting to teach. The candidate figures suggest the losses often happen further down the pipeline than that.

It is the most quoted number about temporary teaching in England, and the most misread. It is a census-day snapshot, not a count of the supply workforce.

From September 2026 academy trusts must buy agency supply staff through a government framework, or match its rates. The caps apply to agency fees, not to what supply teachers are paid.