Teacher recruitment & retention challenges in England

Why is this important? 

This project built on previous Nuffield-funded research to analyse the key trends affecting teacher supply and shortages in England. It included a portfolio of research projects aimed at:

1. Informing policymakers, stakeholders and public debate with an up-to-date overview of the evolving teacher supply situation in England.

2. Developing solutions and tools, by evidencing specific solutions to the teacher supply challenge that can be adopted by policymakers and developing tools for decision-makers to inform their actions to address teacher supply.

3. Contributing to greater understanding of key teacher supply issues by addressing under-researched questions relating to teacher recruitment and retention.

What did the project find, and what are the implications?

The project’s annual Teacher Labour Market highlighted significant challenges in both 2024 and 2025. These reports played an important role in informing debate around teacher pay and conditions, while also underlining the need for continued action on wider factors affecting recruitment and retention, including workload.

The project looked at key policy developments or important factors that should be considered when developing policy. Key findings included:

• Evaluations of the early-career retention policies found some evidence these initiatives can improve retention, although results on their effectiveness and cost effectiveness were mixed.
• Analysis of graduate supply in England revealed substantial differences between university subjects in the proportion of graduates who go on to enter initial teacher training (ITT).
• Research on young people’s career aspirations found that recent generations are slightly more likely than previous cohorts to prioritise socially oriented career goals, which correlate with people being more likely to go into teaching.

The project also identified areas of the school system where teacher supply challenges are particularly acute. For example:

• Updates to the Teacher Recruitment and Retention Dashboard, alongside accompanying analysis, showed that disadvantaged schools tend to experience greater teacher supply challenges than other schools across a range of indicators.
• Research on the special school workforce (here and here) highlighted key challenges facing special schools in recruiting enough specialist teachers.

The findings from this project have helped inform a new Nuffield-funded programme on the education workforce, taking place between 2026 and 2028.