The data provided by the DfE today on ITT applications and offers for postgraduate courses contained some very mixed messages. I am not sure whether the current pay dispute within the universities sector is affecting the data or whether there are genuine differences between subjects, with larger movements between May and June in offers this year than might normally be expected.

Regardless of any data collection issues, the message is the same as ever: offer levels will not be sufficient to meet targets in the majority of subjects, and the reduction in offers in physical education and history will remove the safety valve over-recruitment to high targets in these subjects have offered schools in previous years. Barring any last-minute change in July or August, it is now safe to say that the recruitment round for schools seeking to fill September vacancies next year in 2024 will be challenging unless there is an influx of returners or a reduction in leavers and better levels of retention. Of course, the whole country won’t be affected in the same way, but schools across the South East and parts of London might expect to face similar challenges to this year. You have been warned.

Religious Education and music are two subjects struggling with offers this year, even more than other subjects. Most other subjects are doing better than last year’s dreadful position, but often the offers are little different to the year before the pandemic. However, physics appears to have recovered from last year’s historic low. Whether that is reflected by the numbers arriving at the start of the course, only time will tell.

 The 38,795 applicants by mid-June 2023 compared well with the 32,609 in June 2022 and looks like a healthy increase, but numbers recruited or recruited with conditions pending, a group that will include degree classifications from many universities this year, are down on last June’s number, albeit only slightly. Nearly 2,000 more applicants are awaiting a provider’s decision, and it would be helpful to know whether the majority of those are applicants that have applied to higher education providers?

The total number of young applicants, aged under 25, is similar this year to last, so the increase is in older career switchers rather than new graduates. The number of 30–34 year-olds applying has increased from 3,545 last year to 5,088 this year. As reported previously, the big increase is in candidates for ‘the rest of the world’ – up from 2,657 last June to 7,105 applicants this June. The overall total increase masks little change in the number of applicants from most of the regions of England. However, it is worth noting that 54% of London applicants have received an offer, compared with only 15% of those in the ‘rest of the world’ group. For this reason alone, it is important not to read too much into the headline increase in the number of applicants.   

The number of offers made in the primary sector is down by 1,585 on the June 2022 figure, to just 9,182. Whether that will be enough to satisfy demand for teachers depends partly upon whether the secondary sector decides to recruit and retrain primary qualified teachers to fill their vacancies left by the reduction in history and PE teachers exiting training in 2024.

Over the summer, the DfE might like to reflect with the sector how these monthly statistics can be improved to make them more useful. We know nothing about ethnicity and little about regional breakdown of offer by subjects in the secondary sector. Both would be useful additions to the debate about whether the recruitment crisis is continuing or abating.