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.
NASUWT's 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.”
