How easy have teachers looking for jobs this year found the labour market? The following table, taken from TeachVac data www.teachvac.co.uk for vacancies recorded between 1^st January and yesterday in the secondary sector for schools across England suggests demand is still below that witnessed in 2019 in many key subjects.

Now, in some cases this may be because a better supply position, with more new teachers exiting preparation courses this year, resulting in fewer re-advertisements by schools. Without a dedicated job reference code – something I have been advocating for years – it is difficult to distinguish unfilled vacancies re-advertised from new vacancies except in specific categories such as a head of department or headteacher posts, where there is only one such post.

Nevertheless, the reduction in vacancies for mathematics teachers of 22%, and for science teachers of 25% does suggest a better balanced labour market than in 2019, when schools were suffering from the recruitment into training problems experienced in 2018. Interestingly, despite the fall in the birth rate, demand for teachers for the primary sector is buoyant this year.

One unknown, going forward, is how the global school market will respond to the pandemic over the next twelve months and whether or not teachers from England will once again be attracted to teach overseas in any significant numbers. Will there also be fewer EEA citizens willing and able to teach in England? Time will tell.

Still, at this point in time, schools can feel reasonably confident of filling late vacancies for September 2021 and vacancies for January 2022 in mot subjects in many parts of the country. There will be local shortages, but apart from some vocationally orientated subjects such as business studies and design ad technology, nationwide issues are unlikely to surface.