Secondary school recruitment: End-of-year report

2nd August 2022 by Timo Hannay [link]

Update 2nd August 2022: See also this coverage from TES.

In June, we issued a joint analysis with Teacher Tapp and the Gatsby Foundation looking at the state of the school recruitment market in England. Among other things, we reported a huge surge in secondary school teacher recruitment during the normal peak season in late April and May. This was not only much higher than the previous two COVID-affected seasons, but also well ahead of the last pre-pandemic year in 2019. That study used vacancies data up to the end of May, but by the time we published our report in mid-June, it was becoming apparent that the school recruiting season was not only far more active than usual, but also longer-lasting, with unusually high activity sustained beyond the half-term break, well into June and even July. This update looks at the overall situation for the whole academic year to the end of July now that recruitment has finally returned (more or less) to the much lower levels usually associated with summer.

Unseasonable

Figure 1 shows numbers of teacher vacancy advertisements found on the websites of secondary schools, sixth-form colleges and FE colleges in England for each week during 2021-2022 and for the preceding three academic years. (For more information about how these data were gathered, please see our previous post, especially Footnote 1.)

Looking at weekly data, the most telling comparison is with 2018-2019 (green line), the last full year before the pandemic. The COVID years of 2019-2020 (blue) and 2020-2021 (red) were relatively suppressed. In contrast, 2021-2022 (purple), has been much higher not just relative to the last two years but also compared to a 'normal' pre-pandemic year. (See all years together again.) As well as a much higher than usual peak in mid-May, there was also sustained activity well into June and July, when school recruiting is usually much lower. Even during the last week of June, we found over 100 teacher vacancy adverts – much lower than the most active times of year, when we routinely see more than 1,000 adverts each week, but still almost double the usual rate at that time of year.

The differences between years can be most clearly seen using cumulative data. Across all subjects, we saw more than 5,500 extra adverts from September 2021 to July 2022 compared to the equivalent period in 2018-2019. But this varied a great deal by subject: English and Mathematics showed the smallest differences, while while Arts, Languages, Humanities and Technology showed the largest gains, with Science somewhere in between.

(Use the menus below to view weekly or cumulative data, and to select different subject areas. Click on the figure legend to hide or view individual academic years. Hover over the lines to see corresponding data values.)

Figure 2 summarises these changes compared last year (red columns) and compared to the most recent pre-pandemic year (blue). Looking at both of these comparisons together, all subjects showed very large year-on-year increases in the range 40%-60%, but in some cases this meant no more than a slight increase compared to pre-pandemic levels whilst in other cases it resulted in a net gain of over 30%.

We can also see the differences in terms of numbers of adverts. On this metric, Languages and Science showed the largest year-on-year increases (red), while Humanities and Technology showed the largest increases since before the pandemic (blue). In total, there were nearly 13,000 more adverts than the during the same period last year and over 5,500 more than in the most recent year before the pandemic.

(Use the menu below to switch between changes in percentage terms and in terms of numbers of adverts. Hover over the columns to see corresponding data values and numbers of advertisements.)

Technical talent

Figure 3 shows numbers of advertisements for school technicians. Looking at the weekly data, we can see that 2021-2022 (purple) showed exceptionally high activity during June, especially compared to the first pandemic year of 2019-2020, but even relative to the last pre-COVID year in 2018-2019.

Indeed, looking at cumulative data for all years together, we can see that technician recruitment activity is far above anything seen in recent years, especially in Technology and Science, though Arts and other subjects also ran well head of normal levels.

(Use the menus below to view weekly or cumulative data, and to select different subject areas. Click on the figure legend to hide or view individual academic years. Hover over the lines to see corresponding data values.)

Figure 4 shows these differences by subject, both since last year (red columns) and since before the pandemic (blue). Technology showed the biggest increases compared to pre-pandemic levels in both percentage terms (nearly 80% up) and absolute numbers of adverts (almost 1,000 additional ads).

(Use the menu below to switch between percentages and numbers of advertisements. Click on the figure legend to hide or view individual academic years. Hover over the columns to see corresponding data values.)

Desperately seeking staff?

Amidst widely reported tightness in the overall labour market, and with school hiring activity not only greatly increased, but also continuing much later into the season – even into the summer holiday – there must be some concern as to whether schools will be adequately staffed come the start of the new academic year in September.