London appears to have fared better than the rest of England in terms of the percentage decline in trainee numbers. That said, there isn’t yet time to investigate any a regional breakdown by subject.

Postgraduate new entrants by region
	2021/22	2022/23	Decrease in trainee numbers	% Decline
South East	4,429	3,039	-1,390	-31%
Yorkshire and The Humber	3,224	2,368	-856	-27%
West Midlands	3,251	2,417	-834	-26%
South West	2,177	1,679	-498	-23%
East of England	2,499	1,932	-567	-23%
North East	1,178	935	-243	-21%
East Midlands	2,095	1,666	-429	-20%
North West	4,345	3,473	-872	-20%
London	6,895	5,715	-1,180	-17%
England	30,093	23,224	-6,869	-23%

Since some parts of the South East region already have limited access to trainees in some subjects, the overall decline in trainee number sin that region must be of concern.

Of more interest to schools is the likely open market numbers after removing those on the high Achievers (Teach First) programme and on apprenticeships or the salaried route where the trainees may be committed to a particular school. Assuming that 5% of the remainder don’t end up in state schools for any one of a number of reasons; this may be an underestimate in some parts of the country, the ‘free market’ pool of trainees likely to be looking for a September 2023 teaching post looks something like the following table

Subject	Open Market
Mathematics	1467
English	1214
Modern Languages	600
Biology	495
Physics	366
Chemistry	644
Physical Education	1295
Other	387
Design & Technology	372
History	950
Geography	523
Computing	304
Art & Design	440
Religious Education	249
Music	228
Drama	304
Business Studies	164
Classics	52

Should this table be anywhere near correct, then there will be shortages in many subjects from quite early in 2023. As mentioned in the first of this series of posts, schools might do well to ensure that they can retain staff. Paying large sums to try to recruit teachers may just be a wate of money.

Although all ethnic groups have seen a decline in trainee numbers since 2019, the decline has been most obvious in the ‘White’ group where there are around 5,000 fewer trainees this year compared with 219/20. Most other ethnic groups have seen only a small decline in trainee numbers since 2019.

Ethnic Group	2019/20	2020/21	2021/22	2022/23
Asian	2,840	3,378	2,862	2,752
Black	1,054	1,427	1,159	1,027
Mixed	856	1,060	900	820
Other	346	495	447	406
White	22,210	26,324	21,563	17,394

Part of the reason for the decline in ‘White’ trainees may be the reduction in the number of trainees needed for the primary sector where this group has dominated in certain parts of the country.

More worrying is the loss of young graduates coming into teaching. These are the potential leaders of tomorrow. Although undergraduate numbers are up; postgraduate numbers are nearly 800 below their pre-pandemic level

	Aged under 25
	2019/20	2020/21	2021/22	2022/23
Postgraduate Total	14,564	17,455	15,736	12,281
Higher Education Institution	7,561	9,252	7,909	6,351
School Centred ITT	1,693	2,209	2,198	2,012
School Direct (fee-funded)	3,591	4,304	4,209	2,709
School Direct (salaried)	578	540	255	205
Postgraduate Teaching Apprenticeship	37	76	225	193
High Potential ITT	1,104	1,074	940	811
Undergraduate	4,417	5,448	5,511	5,350
Total	18,981	22,903	21,247	17,631

Higher education seems to have bene most affected by this decline in interest in teaching among new graduates and those in the early years of their careers. This year, the number of men entering teaching as graduates fell to 7,155 well below the 9,229 of 2019/20.

As I commented in the two previous posts today about the ITT census, these are challenging numbers for the government and very worrying for schools.