UK teacher recruits up 13%

The UK Department for Education published school workforce statistics for England on June 4 showing 40,813 full-time-equivalent teachers left the state-funded sector in 2024/25, down 1,700 from a year earlier. The same release said 41,736 FTE teachers entered the workforce, while the total number of teachers stood at 468,258 FTE. The department’s release page described the latest figures as part of its annual snapshot of teachers, support staff, vacancies, pay and retention in state-funded schools in England. Ben Phillipson, a Labour MP, said in a post on X on June 4 that the figures showed “one of the lowest teacher leaving rates on record” and pointed readers to a second official release on teacher training recruitment. The post also said initial teacher training recruits were up 13%, with stronger performance in mathematics and science subjects. ### Which official figures were released on June 4? (gov.uk) The Department for Education’s “School workforce in England: November 2025” release was published on June 4, 2026, and covers publicly funded schools in England. The department said the publication includes teacher numbers, entrants, leavers, retention, vacancies, pay, qualifications and sickness absence. A separate official source linked to the recruitment claim is the “Initial Teacher Training Census” for academic year 2025/26. (gov.uk) That release, published on December 4, 2025 and updated on March 3, 2026, gives provisional figures on new entrants starting teacher training in England by subject, route, region and trainee characteristics. ### How low were teacher exits in the latest workforce data? The 2025 school workforce release showed 40,813 FTE leavers and 41,736 FTE entrants, leaving the workforce slightly larger on a flows basis over the year. The same release said there were 468,258 FTE teachers in service, about 400 fewer than in 2023 but 26,900 more than in 2010, when the school workforce census began. (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk) Teacher retention one year after qualification was 89.7%, up 0.7 percentage points from the previous year, according to the release page. The teacher vacancy rate was 0.5%, or five vacancies per thousand teachers in service. ### Where does the 13% recruitment increase come from? The Department for Education’s latest Initial Teacher Training Census says it provides provisional counts of new entrants starting ITT programmes in England in 2025/26, with revised figures for 2024/25. (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk) The release page available through GOV.UK does not itself display the 13% figure in the excerpt surfaced by search, but Phillipson’s June 4 post attributes that increase to the official statistics and says mathematics and science recorded particular gains. The same ITT census release notes an important methodological point: for the first time, it includes self-funded trainees from 2019/20 onward, and says recruitment numbers may therefore appear higher than in previous releases and are not directly comparable with earlier publications. That caveat applies to reading trend changes in the census. (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk) ### What do the releases cover — and what do they not cover? Both releases apply to England rather than the whole United Kingdom. The school workforce publication covers state-funded schools, while the ITT census covers people starting teacher training programmes in England, including postgraduate and undergraduate routes and a separate section on early-years initial teacher training. (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk) The Department for Education’s statistics collection pages show the next school workforce release is due in June 2027, while the next Initial Teacher Training Census release is scheduled for December 2026. Readers can find both datasets through the department’s GOV.UK statistics pages and Explore Education Statistics service. (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk) (gov.uk)