As the 26th May and ‘Thank a Teacher’ Day draws nearer I have looked at TeachVac statistics for vacancies in 2022 up to the 10th May compared with the vacancy number for the whole of 2019, the last full year before the pandemic. The statistics make for grim reading.
In seven areas, the total vacancies recorded so far in 2022 exceed the total recorded for the whole of 2019.
| Subject | 2019 | 2022 | Percentage +/- (The nearest whole %) |
| Teaching and Learning(Pastoral) | 502 | 715 | 42% |
| SEN | 610 | 845 | 39% |
| Social Sciences | 888 | 1077 | 21% |
| RE | 1127 | 1328 | 18% |
| Design & Technology | 2524 | 2664 | 6% |
| Leadership | 4708 | 5003 | 6% |
| IT | 1826 | 1846 | 1% |
| Business | 1657 | 1599 | -4% |
| Languages | 2932 | 2793 | -5% |
| Vocational | 432 | 408 | -6% |
| Geography | 1812 | 1702 | -6% |
| Music | 1180 | 1031 | -13% |
| History | 1365 | 1190 | -13% |
| Total | 64569 | 54453 | -16% |
| PE | 1983 | 1575 | -21% |
| Primary | 16646 | 12964 | -22% |
| Science | 8059 | 6066 | -25% |
| Mathematics | 6848 | 5017 | -27% |
| Art | 1337 | 952 | -29% |
| English | 6387 | 4253 | -33% |
These include subject areas such as religious education and design and technology where there have already been more vacancies posted in the first four and a bit months of 2022 than during the whole of 2019. Grim news for any school looking for a September appointment and possibly a catastrophe for schools that will need to make an appointment for January 2023.
Interestingly, it is still the EBacc subjects where recruitment is less buoyant. In the case of maths, English and the sciences, vacancies are still adrift of the 2019 total by some margin. That doesn’t mean everything is great, even in these subjects because the vacancies are still close to the total for the pool of new entrants, especially once those trainees already committed to schools are excluded from the calculations.
So, ‘Thank a Teacher’ Day must also be ‘recruit a trainee into teaching’ day, week and month if we are going to continue to improve the education for all children wherever they live and whatever school they attend.
At TeachVac, we monitor trends at every level from geographical to phase and subject and career grade. Our reports provide invaluable intelligence to schools, MATs, dioceses, local authorities and others interested in the labour market for teachers. The reports are also the most comprehensive daily reports available.
There are still a couple of weeks to go to the resignation date at the end of May and so far, this week, TeachVac has recorded more than 2,800 new vacancies in the course of just two days. By the end of this week, the total for 2022 could be in excess of 55,00 or less than 9,000 behind the total for the whole of 2019.
The teaching workforce crisis doesn’t receive the same attention as the NHS crisis, but its effects are just as key to the nation’s health, welfare and economic prosperity. Sadly, there was no recognition in the Queen’s speech of the issues facing teacher supply. Rearranging the organisational structure of schooling by making all schools academies may be a solution, but don’t bet on it.
John Howson 