In this post, I look at the three key sites for teacher vacancies in England. TeachVac; the DfE Vacancy site and The TES. Now this is not an unbiased look, because I am Chair of the company that owns TeachVac. Indeed, it might be regarded as an advertisement, so treat it in that way if you read on.

TeachVac is in the process of filing its accounts for the year to June 2020 with Companies House. The DfE doesn’t file accounts, and the TES has filed accounts up to the end of August 2019, with a forward comment about the possible effects of the covid pandemic in the year to August 2020.

All three sites cost teachers nothing to use during the last year. However, the DfE site only offers vacancies in state schools, and only a proportion of those schools. TeachVac estimates that in 2020 the DfE proportion of vacancies for teaching posts never rose above 40% of the vacancies open to teachers across both state and private schools. So, the DfE is worthwhile if you only want a job in a state-funded school. Both TeachVac and the TES offer vacancies in state and private schools, although TeachVac doesn’t cover all private schools with pupils below the age of eleven. The TES coverage depends upon those prepared to pay to advertise vacancies on their platform.

Both TeachVac and the DfE site have no direct financial cost to schools. However, the DfE site does require schools to input vacancies into the site. This is optional for TeachVac, and most schools are happy to rely upon the automatic vacancy collection process operated by TeachVac. The TES has a number of options, all require schools to pay for their vacancies to appear on the TES job site and be matched with teachers.

TeachVac also offers users a monthly newsletter on the state of the market for teachers.

The operating cost for TeachVac in 2019/20 was just £1.10 per vacancy processed. Neither the DfE nor The TES publishes a similar figure, but the TES accounts would suggest their cost per vacancy is much higher than that of TeachVac. To find out the cost of the DfE site would need a parliamentary question.

So, are teacher associations, governors and school business managers and those responsible for local authorities, diocese and MATs recommending TeachVac as the most cost effective means of displaying and matching vacancies? Of course not.

Are they recommending teachers to use Teachvac, some are, others aren’t. Course leaders preparing teachers are now recommending TeachVac as a place for trainees to look for their first vacancy. Those trainees are sticking with TeachVac to find subsequent jobs and promotion opportunities.

I am proud of the achievements of the TeachVac team in driving down costs of vacancy advertising. Next the team will start to look at other parts of the recruitment journey to see if there are saving to be made in other areas as well.

Incidentally, if anyone wants to sponsor the TeachVac site, my investors are always open to discussions.