I have been reading the interim report on teacher turnover in 2026 from Timo Hannay et all. The survey is supported by The Gatsby foundation. Teacher Recruitment and Retention 2026 The details about headteacher turnover can be found on pages 10 and 11.

Overall, teacher vacancies are in decline. This doesn’t surprise me. A combination of falling school rolls, especially in the primary sector; better ITT recruitment meaning fewer temporary ‘out-of-field’ appointments, and the war in the Middle East possibly reducing the number of teachers thinking of moving overseas could all be contributory factors to any decline. MATs might also be offering vacancies internally before bothering to pay for external advertising. Finally, cutbacks in leadership roles as budgets come under pressure and rolls are falling may also help to explain the downturn, if indeed it is actually a downturn. In addition, some schools and MATs might have stopped the use of rolling vacancy adverts for talent banking when there was no real job.

For headteacher turnover the approach Report’s approach is slightly different. The report states:

‘We draw on Department for Education records to track changes in headteacher appointments across the academic year. SchoolDash monitors whether the named headteacher at each school has changed, providing a direct measure of headteacher turnover that complements the survey and job advertisement data presented elsewhere in this report.’ Teacher Recruitment and Retention 2026 Page 10

Not the interesting thing is the date a school notifies the DfE of a change of headteacher. Assuming the departing head’s contract expires on 31^st August, the school will possibly still have that headteacher on 1^st September, so two names may be recorded for the year. If the school changes the name on 31^st August, the following year may only record one name.

A further complication arises when there is an acting or temporary headteacher during an interregnum. This could add an extra name to the total for the year.

The alternative way of measuring headteacher turnover is to record and count actual vacancies. This isn’t as easy as it one was, as headteacher posts don’t need to be advertised nationally. However, it is a fair bet that between them, the DfE vacancy site and the ‘tes’ probably pick up almost all state school headships. Those these two sites miss are either only advertised within MATs or placed on regional job boards, as in the North East.

I started tracking headteacher vacancies in the 1980s, and for my latest analysis see the post Headteacher vacancies – a changing trend in advertising date? | John Howson and the two posts that follow that one. Recording vacancies can offer a wealth of data that just recording changes in names misses. I recall a meeting with Mr Hannay when I was running TeachVac.  Our method visually looked at the vacancies our AI located and input the information. What we learnt, and it still holds true, is that for real monitoring each vacancy needs a unique identifier that stays with the vacancy from the start of the recruitment process to the person appointed joining the school staff. I remain ever hopeful of such a change.