Classroom Teachers and promoted posts

Primary Sector

The primary sector during 2023 has been noticeable for a decline in advertised vacancies across England in both the private and state school sectors.

January to July each year
Primary Classroom & promoted posts
2022
Count of URN	Column Labels
Row Labels	Independent	State	Grand Total
East Midlands	53	2183	2236
East of England	214	3052	3266
London	529	3019	3548
North East	7	257	264
North West	63	2198	2261
South East	392	4663	5055
South West	106	2724	2830
West Midlands	53	2078	2131
Yorkshire & the Humber	62	2075	2137
Grand Total	1479	22249	23728
Primary Classroom & promoted posts
2023
Row Labels	Independent	State	Grand Total
East Midlands	25	1642	1667
East of England	116	2254	2370
London	316	2336	2652
North East	7	608	615
North West	39	1607	1646
South East	240	3240	3480
South West	92	2089	2181
West Midlands	50	1674	1724
Yorkshire & the Humber	34	1316	1350
Grand Total	919	16766	17685
Difference between 2022 and 2023
Row Labels
East Midlands	-28	-541	-569
East of England	-98	-798	-896
London	-213	-683	-896
North East	0	351	351
North West	-24	-591	-615
South East	-152	-1423	-1575
South West	-14	-635	-649
West Midlands	-3	-404	-407
Yorkshire & the Humber	-28	-759	-787
Grand Total	-560	-5483	-6043
Percentage difference
East Midlands	-53%	-25%	-25%
East of England	-46%	-26%	-27%
London	-40%	-23%	-25%
North East	0%	137%	133%
North West	-38%	-27%	-27%
South East	-39%	-31%	-31%
South West	-13%	-23%	-23%
West Midlands	-6%	-19%	-19%
Yorkshire & the Humber	-45%	-37%	-37%
Grand Total	-38%	-25%	-25%

The one region where the data shows a different pattern is the North East and reasons for that difference will be explored in more detail later.

Leaving the outcome for the North East aside, the other regions all recorded declines of between 19% (West Midlands) and 37% (Yorkshire and The Humber), with the average for the England (including the North East) being a decline of 25% for all classroom teachers and promoted posts in the primary sector across England for the January to July months in 2023 when compared with the same period in 2022.

The data for the North East looks less out of line when compared over a longer period of time

North East
	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023
January	46	29	46	13	17	34
February	38	31	50	8	11	45
March	78	59	101	34	26	102
April	88	24	37	125	44	118
May	80	29	52	183	47	206
June	36	10	53	68	22	102
July	7	5	13	0	22	8
Total	373	187	352	431	189	615

It may be that a change in data collection affected the 2022 data. Many of the local authorities in the North East post the vacancies in their primary schools on a regional job board. However, at this point in time the actual reason for the change must be speculation.

Leadership Vacancies

The leadership Scale comprises three grades: assistant head; deputy head and headteacher (some times written as head teacher). The first two grades are less common in the primary sector than in the secondary sector. However, with the larger number of schools in the primary sector, the number of headship vacancies each year is larger than in the secondary sector.

Primary Leadership
2022
Grade	Independent	State	Grand Total
Assistant Head	27	776	803
Deputy Head	48	891	939
Head teacher	15	1469	1484
Grand Total	90	3136	3226
2023
Grade	Independent	State	Grand Total
Assistant Head	13	586	599
Deputy Head	37	723	760
Head teacher	19	1259	1278
Grand Total	69	2568	2637
Difference
Grade	Independent	State	Grand Total
Assistant Head	-14	-190	-204
Deputy Head	-11	-168	-179
Head teacher	4	-210	-206
Grand Total	-21	-568	-589
Grade	Independent	State	Grand Total
Assistant Head	-52%	-24%	-25%
Deputy Head	-23%	-19%	-19%
Head teacher	27%	-14%	-14%
Grand Total	-23%	-18%	-18%

As will classroom teacher vacancies, a reduction in leadership vacancies was recorded for the first seven months of 2023 when compared with the same period in 2022.

TeachVac’s data coverage of the primary sector in the private school market is not complete, so the changes here must be regarded with caution. The numbers are also small in some cells, further reducing the usefulness of the data.

Coverage of the state-funded primary school sector by TeachVac has been more comprehensive. The largest fall is in the assistant headship grade. This is not unexpected in a sector that is facing falling rolls. Although the use of the assistant head grade has increased in recent years in the primary sector, it is still less common to see such vacancies than for deputy head or headteacher posts.

London and the South East remain the two regions where assistant headteacher vacancies are most commonly to be found. This year, these two regions accounted for 220 or the 586 state-sector assistant headteacher vacancies recorded between January and July 2023 compared with 257 of the 776 vacancies at this grade recorded in the first seven months of 2022.

The decline in headteacher vacancies recorded in 2023 may be partly down to a reduction in re-advertisements of headteacher vacancies in 2023. As many re-advertisements for these posts only appear in September, the exact position is not certain at this point in the year. However, the decline in headteacher advertisements in the first seven months of 2023, when compared with the same period in 2022, was less than that recorded in the other two leadership grades for posts in the primary sector.       

 On the basis of this data, is primary school teaching a good choice of career at the present moment in time? For those required to pay full tuition fees to train as a teacher, there must be a question mark about the accumulation of an increased debt at the end of the training course and the risk of not finding a teaching post. There are vacancies, but probably not enough to provide a guarantee of a teaching post for every trainee and returner.

Additionally, the implications of the two-year Early Career Framework may make it more likely that schools will either recruit returners over new entrants to the profession or use schemes such as the Graduate Apprenticeship Scheme to train their own teachers.

Further posts will explore the secondary sector data in more detail.

For the first part of this series see: A tale of two markets | John Howson (wordpress.com)