Fewer jobs or just fewer re-advertisement?

Posted on August 4, 2021 by John Howson

Without unique job reference numbers, keeping track of changes in the labour market for teachers requires some careful detective work. While most vacancies are probably filled from the first advertisement, some are not, causing the post to be re-advertised. Some posts are also advertised in several different locations, usually without a school considering whether such a practice is cost effective.

There are also some schools that advertise ‘talent banking’ vacancies where there is probably not a job behind the advertisement, but the school can access details of potential applicants when a vacancy does arise. This is a common practice in the recruitment world, and can mislead those seeking to understand how many teaching vacancies there really are in a year.

TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk now has the data from the first seven months of 2021 for the teacher labour market in England. Overall, vacancies recorded are up from 42,700 to 45,400 for the first seven months of this year compared with the same period in 2020. However, there are marked differences between the sectors. Primary vacancies are up by 40% from 10,000 to 14,000 whereas secondary headline vacancy numbers are down by some 7%.

But, are secondary vacancies really down, or is it just that more vacancies are being filled at first advertisement? Business Studies, one of the subjects largely ignored by governments that normally struggles to find sufficient applicants registered a 2% increase in 2021, against the overall downward trend. Most subjects with increases this year are minority subjects such as economic; health and Social Care; Law; psychology and sociology. However Design and Technology has experienced a similar 2% increase to that of business studies and biology has recorded a 3% increase. Interestingly, physical education has also seen a 2% increase.

More spectacular are the 18% decrease in vacancies in mathematics and the 15% in general science posts. (Specific physics vacancies fell by 7%). English vacancies were down by 11%.

In order to gauge how much of the deduction might be down to less need to re-advertise, vacancies for teachers of mathematics posted by school in the London Region were reviewed for the January to July period in each year between 2018 and 2021

	Total schools	Schools 2+ vacancies	Schools 4+ vacancies
2021	185	51%	10%
2020	181	52%	15%
2019	184	61%	23%
2018	155	57%	17%

Source: TeachVac

There are certainly fewer schools with more than one vacancy both this year and in 2020. The reduction in the percentage of schools with 4+ vacancies is even more marked. This might suggest that in the London Region there might be some credence to the theory that schools have found posts easier to fill since the pandemic struck. This despite the fact that the total number of schools posting at least one vacancy for a teacher of mathematics has remained consistent over the past three years at between 181 and 185 schools in both the state and independent sectors recorded as placing a vacancy for a teacher of mathematics.

Within London there are regional differences with South East London schools seemingly finding recruitment more of a challenge than schools north of the River Thames.

Urgent action needed to prevent teacher supply disaster

Posted on July 29, 2021 by John Howson

Teacher supply is in a mess. This month has produced the government’s consultation on ITT, the STRB Report and associated pay freeze for all teachers unable to negotiate individual salaries and today the latest UCAS data on applications and offers relating to teacher preparation courses starting this autumn. While applications for primary sector courses remain buoyant, applications for secondary courses have now fallen below the level reached in July 2020.

Secondary
Applications for Secondary Courses	March	April	May	June	July	August
2015	42990	48380	53210	57480	62910	66020
2016	43820	48570	53600	59220	63710	66700
2017	40440	45280	50040	55710	60680	64760
2018	33940	39220	46660	52530	58830	64150
2019	34600	40560	47270	53250	59440	64890
2020	35940	43270	51030	59470	71060	77330
2021	43910	51090	55980	61480	65990

Source TeachVac from UCAS data

The month on month addition to applications is well below last year – applicants may make applications to several courses- and more in line with pre-pandemic levels. This is concerning in view of the evidence from recruiters that graduate jobs are not recovering as fast as other parts of the labour market. Even more alarming is the disparity between subjects. Here is my view of what is happening in key secondary subjects in terms of ‘placed’ applicants and those made or considering ‘offers’.

Modern Languages and geography might be described as disaster areas in terms likely trainee numbers this year. Neither subject will meet predicted levels of demand set out by the DfE.

On the other hand, PE and history are matching last year’s record levels and Chemistry is another bright spot, with more than 200 more applicants placed or with offers than last year.

Physic and design and technology won’t recruit enough trainees, and although physics is still doing better than two years ago, design and technology is another disaster area, with trainee numbers possibly heading for their lowest levels since 2013/14.

Art is fine, with numbers double those of two years ago. The same is true for music, although this year’s numbers are down on last year.

Religious Education has seen numbers return to the level of two years ago.

Business studies has lost ground on last year, but is well above two years ago.

Computing has lost much of last year’s increase, although is still above the level of two years ago.

Mathematics has retained the gains of last year, but English has some 600 fewer applicants placed or with offers, taking the subject back to 2017/18 levels.

Finally, biology is a bit of a puzzle. Last year numbers reached record levels, but this year they are less than half those levels and currently below likely DfE predicted need levels. This may be a reaction to the state of the job market for trainees last year.

The DfE has today also published the ITT profiles https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/initial-teacher-training-performance-profiles-2019-to-2020 This reveals a drop in employment in state schools, so maybe course tutors are being more cautious about offering places to trainees that might not fin a teaching post in 2022?

Whatever the reasoning, this will be another bad year for teacher supply, and with a pay freeze it isn’t likely to improve any time soon. Indeed, this year may be the longer period of under-recruitment to target in some subjects since I first started looking at the data on ITT applications in the early 1990s.

Although ITT numbers will need to reduce in the future, as the effects of the falling birth rate work through the system over the coming decade, on these numbers there will still not be enough trainees to meet the needs of all schools in all subjects.

The DfE’s market review of ITT has already affected market sentiment among providers. Now is not the time to totally de-stabilise the market and hope everything will be alright in the future new world. Maybe it is time for the Education Select Committee to take a look at what is happening.

Job market still patchy

Posted on June 23, 2021 by John Howson

How easy have teachers looking for jobs this year found the labour market? The following table, taken from TeachVac data www.teachvac.co.uk for vacancies recorded between 1^st January and yesterday in the secondary sector for schools across England suggests demand is still below that witnessed in 2019 in many key subjects.

Subject	2019	2021	Percentage +/- (The nearest whole %)
Art	978	795	-19%
Business	840	842	+0%
Classics	97	108	+11%
Computer Science	1263	1237	-2%
Dance	92	61	-34%
Drama	496	435	-12%
DT	1812	1870	+3%
Economics	370	355	-4%
Engineering	57	74	+30%
English	4159	3028	-27%
Geography	1342	1149	-14%
Health and Social Care	167	190	+14%
History	1054	914	-13%
Humanities	417	337	-19%
Law	42	57	+36%
Mathematics	4712	3669	-22%
Media Studies	176	109	-38%
MFL	2125	1990	-6%
Music	886	796	-10%
Pastoral	259	214	-17%
PE	1383	1178	-15%
Philosophy	68	60	-12%
Psychology	307	441	+44%
RE	809	909	+12%
Science	5642	4245	-25%
–Biology	401	368	-8%
–Chemistry	515	427	-17%
–Physics	647	552	-15%
SEN	324	513	+58%
Sociology	124	169	+36%
Total	30001	25745	-14%

TeachVac http://www.teachvac.co.uk analysis of teacher vacancies in 2021

Now, in some cases this may be because a better supply position, with more new teachers exiting preparation courses this year, resulting in fewer re-advertisements by schools. Without a dedicated job reference code – something I have been advocating for years – it is difficult to distinguish unfilled vacancies re-advertised from new vacancies except in specific categories such as a head of department or headteacher posts, where there is only one such post.

Nevertheless, the reduction in vacancies for mathematics teachers of 22%, and for science teachers of 25% does suggest a better balanced labour market than in 2019, when schools were suffering from the recruitment into training problems experienced in 2018. Interestingly, despite the fall in the birth rate, demand for teachers for the primary sector is buoyant this year.

One unknown, going forward, is how the global school market will respond to the pandemic over the next twelve months and whether or not teachers from England will once again be attracted to teach overseas in any significant numbers. Will there also be fewer EEA citizens willing and able to teach in England? Time will tell.

Still, at this point in time, schools can feel reasonably confident of filling late vacancies for September 2021 and vacancies for January 2022 in mot subjects in many parts of the country. There will be local shortages, but apart from some vocationally orientated subjects such as business studies and design ad technology, nationwide issues are unlikely to surface.

Demand for teachers

Posted on June 19, 2021 by John Howson

How is demand for teachers shaping up so far in 2021 now that schools are returning to what might be described as the new ‘post-modern’ normal?

An examination of weekly vacancies this year compared with the past three years data conducted by TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk has concluded that demand remains weak for teachers of:

Physical Education

History

Geography

Art

Mathematics

English

And Science overall, although demand for some specific subjects remains stronger.

Compared with pre-pandemic levels.

Over the past few weeks, demand has been strengthening for teachers of music (after a weak start to the year) and teachers of languages.

Demand remains strong for teachers of:

Religious Education

Business Studies

IT/Computing

Demand for teachers of Design and Technology is at record levels.

Some of the weakness in demand in Mathematics may be attributable to a better level of supply requiring fewer re-advertisements. Conversely, some of the increased demand for Design and Technology teachers may be due to increased levels of re-advertisements as schools struggle to find suitable candidates.

In terms of the location of vacancies, the South East region has witnessed the greatest demand from schools so far in 2021 whereas the North East region is still the part of England where jobs are hardest to find.

Vacancies are now reducing across all categories, as the summer holidays approach. The likely overall number of vacancies for 2021 is going to be somewhere between 55,000 to 60,000 as recorded vacancies by TeachVac. Up on last year, but unlikely to match the record level seen in 2019, when demand outpaced supply in many subjects across the year as a whole.

With reports that the independent sector has recorded a decline in pupil numbers, presumably due to a reduction in overseas students, any recovery in that sector will likely increase demand for teachers in 2022.

Teacher Vacancies

Posted on March 28, 2020 by John Howson

1,000+ new vacancies for teachers posted since Monday by schools in England, according to TeachVac data.www.teachvac.co.uk

Of these vacancies, the majority were posted by secondary schools; with half of the vacancies located in 3 regions (London; South East and East of England). Vacancies included 87 for teachers of English; 138 for teachers of mathematics and 156 for teachers of science and specific subjects within the sciences.

TeachVac’s dedicated team are working remotely to bring you as many the vacancies posted by schools in England as possible. Schools anywhere in the world can post vacancies on TeachVac Global for a small fee.

TeachVac is looking to expand the service in England to non-teaching vacancies using the spare capacity available if teaching vacancies reduce in number significantly.

John Howson

Chair, TeachVac

Shortage of maths teachers in 2019?

Posted on March 4, 2019 by John Howson

TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk the recruitment site where I am chair of the Board has issued an amber warning for mathematics vacancies. This means that based on the number of vacancies tracked so far in 2019, TeachVac believes that at the current rate of advertisement of vacancies in the subject schools in some parts of England will likely find recruiting qualified teachers of mathematics a challenge. Part of the problem is down to a dip in the number of trainees recruited for ITT courses starting last September that feed into the 2019 labour market.

In September 2018, only some 2,190 trainees started ITT courses and with 265 of these already on courses that place them in the classroom, such as Teach First and the School Direct Salaried route, the free pool of trainees was only around 1,900. Allowing for those that either don’t make the grade or decide not to teach in state funded schools, the pool of available new entrants this year is likely to be around 1,800 or little more than one new entrant for every two secondary schools. Schools can also recruit existing teachers from other schools or returners from a career break or another non-state funded school, but such teachers are generally more expensive than new entrants to the profession.

In February, TeachVac issue both an Amber and a Red warning for Business Studies and an Amber warning for Design and Technology as already noted on this blog. The latter warning is likely to be upgraded to a Red warning sometime soon.

A Red warning means that schools anywhere in England might experience difficulties recruiting in that subject and that by the autumn more vacancies will have been recorded than there were trainees entering the labour market to fill them. Red warnings mean vacancies for January 2020 will be especially hard to fill from new entrants to the profession.

At the other end of the scale, some EBacc subjects are not creating enough vacancies to absorb the number of trainees on ITT courses this year. Both history and geography trainees may struggle to find jobs in large parts of England for September and even January 2020 even when humanities vacancies are taken into account.

As every year, physical education trainees are well advised to play to any second subject strengths and may be especially welcomed if they offer to plug the gaps in maths teacher numbers. However, they need to ensure that some teaching in their main subject is also on offer.

Despite the concern over the teaching of languages, these teachers face challenges in finding a teaching post. TeachVac tracks details of the subjects within adverts for ‘a teacher of modern languages’ and can provide information if asked.

Will the announcement of 1,000 graduate posts for trainee detectives in the police forces impact on those thinking of teaching as a career? Police salaries are generally higher than teaching and the lower ranks can earn overtimes, so there is a risk some might switch.