A delivery plan is urgently needed setting out how the Department for Education means to achieve its pledge to recruit 6,500 teachers by the end of this Parliament, the National Audit Office has said.
However, the report (NAO, 2025) has also said that it is not clear to what extent meeting the 6,500 pledge – the deadline for which will be no later than Spring 2029 – will address current or future teacher shortages.
The 6,500 pledge was at the heart of the government’s election campaign but has been criticised consistently for being vague with little detail forthcoming on how the DfE intends to meet it – including in which phase these teachers will be recruited.
The NAO said that the DfE is still considering “how to split the pledge across settings but will not formalise the split until funding has been agreed as part of the spending review”. It adds: “As such, it cannot confirm the extent to which meeting the pledge will provide the teachers needed.”
It is not even clear whether 6,500 teachers will be enough to meet demand over the rest of the current Parliament.
The NAO says that despite having budgeted £700m in 2024/25 for initiatives to address the recruitment and retention crisis, the latest data shows that there are as many as 4,000 vacancies across secondary schools and FE colleges.
A big problem is growing secondary school rolls. The NAO states that while, since 2018, more teachers have been recruited than have left the profession each year – there is a growing number of secondary students, expected to peak in 2028, and teacher numbers are failing to keep pace.
For example, between 2015/16 and 2023/24, secondary teacher numbers increased by 3% to 217,600, while student numbers rose by 15% to 3.7 million.
As is well-known, for all but one of the past 10 years, the DfE has missed its target for those starting secondary school teacher training, with the latest recruitment figures showing that the DfE only managing to fill 62% of its secondary recruitment target – with 13 out of 18 subjects under-recruiting.
The NAO reports that in 2022/23, 19,900 secondary teachers left the profession, compared with 14,700 in 2019/20, and 18,500 in 2018/19. However, the proportion of secondary teachers retiring has decreased notably, from 33% in 2010/11 (6,900) to 7% in 2022/23 (1,500), meaning that many more are leaving for reasons other than retirement.
At the same time, only 8,700 newly qualified teachers started work in 2023/24, the lowest number since 2010/11 (while 8,200 teachers returned to the profession).
FE colleges are the worst affected by shortages and the DfE has predicted they could need between 8,400 and 12,400 more teachers by 2028/29, the NAO adds.
The report states: “The DfE has a good understanding of secondary school teacher numbers, but its modelling of future requirements does not build in known shortages, nor indicate the total number of teachers needed.
“In July 2024, the government pledged to recruit an additional 6,500 teachers by the end of the current Parliament, but it is not yet clear whether this will fully address current and expected teacher shortages.
“Following announcement of the multi-year spending review settlement, (the DfE should) provide greater transparency around what the 6,500 pledge means in practice for the school and FE sectors, with a published delivery plan setting out objectives, responsibilities, milestones, and how increases will be measured, and subsequently, publicly report on progress.”
Of the £700m budgeted in 2024/25, the DfE has focused on training bursaries, career development, and retention payments of up to £6,000 to those qualified to teach secondary school maths, physics, chemistry or computing who choose to teach in disadvantaged schools in the first five years of their career.
However, the NAO adds: “Evidence suggests pay increases have more impact on teacher numbers than other initiatives, but there are affordability implications and teachers’ real-terms pay was 10% less in 2024 than in 2010.”
The NAO points out that this year’s 5.5% pay rise for all teachers represents £1.2bn extra funding. The NAO analysis came as leaked reports in the national press suggest that the STRB is to recommend a 4% pay rise for the 2025/26 academic year.
The NAO emphasises too that the most cited reasons for teachers to quit the profession are now related to work overload or stress, however its report warns: “The DfE has limited evidence on the effectiveness of initiatives to improve workload or wellbeing, despite these being common reasons for teachers leaving.”
The NAO also says that the DfE needs to “consider what more it can do to encourage those undertaking teacher training to move into teaching jobs in the state-funded sector” and must also “extend its evidence base on what works to recruit and retain teachers”.
Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said: “Despite the government's pledge, secondary schools and FE colleges face a challenge in securing enough teachers to support growing student numbers. The DfE must continue efforts to look at this as a cross-system issue and improve further education workforce data, to allocate funding effectively and ensure all children and young people achieve the best outcomes.”
Responding to the report, Jack Worth, the school workforce lead at the National Foundation for Educational Research – who himself has been keeping close tabs on progress towards the 6,500 pledge – said: “This report sends a clear message to government that it will miss its 6,500 teacher recruitment pledge if it does not take action now.
“Unfilled vacancy levels are at their highest rates since records began in 2010, with pay, stress from dealing with pupil behaviour and workload pressures reported to be contributing to teachers leaving the profession.
“Properly funded pay rises are urgently needed alongside and non-financial measures, such as workload reduction and flexible working, to improve both recruitment and retention.”
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, added: “Virtually every school and college in the country is having to manage teacher shortages because of long-standing nationwide recruitment and retention problems.
“We’ve had no end of piecemeal policies but the overriding factors remain unresolved – pay levels are not competitive enough and workload and stress is driving teachers out of the profession.
“This will only be resolved by improving pay, school and college funding, and dialling down the excessive pressures of Ofsted inspections and performance tables.”
NAO: Teacher workforce: secondary and further education, April 2025: www.nao.org.uk/reports/teacher-workforce-secondary-and-further-education