How much do post-pandemic recruiting trends vary across schools?
22nd March 2023 by Timo Hannay [link]
Update 22nd March 2023: See also this coverage by Tes.
Following our previous post on secondary school recruiting trends, a correspondent asked us how much these vary by school type or location. It's a good question (and also a slightly complicated one to answer – see Footnote 1).
A place in the country
Figure 1 shows the weekly numbers of teacher vacancy adverts that our systems were able to find on the websites of secondary schools and colleges between September 2017 and February 2023, with each academic year shown in a different colour. Like last time, we're going to look at cumulative numbers, which make it easier to compare one year with another. As before, across all schools, we see that the pandemic years of 2019-2020 (yellow) and 2020-2021 (green) were lower than the last pre-pandemic year, 2018-2019 (red). In addition, the first post-pandemic year, 2021-2022 (blue) is higher than the pre-pandemic level by around 6,000 adverts and the current year, 2022-2023 (purple), is presently running at an even higher rate.
So far so familiar. How does this vary between groups of schools? Still looking at cumulative data, we find that the biggest differences are geographical: schools in the North East and Yorkshire & The Humber have merely returned to pre-pandemic levels of activity (compare the red and blue lines), while those in the North West, the South West, the South East and London have overshot by the greatest proportions. The East Midlands, West Midlands and East of England are somewhere in between.
(Use the menus below to view weekly or cumulative data, and to select different types of school. Click on the figure legend to hide or view individual academic years. Hover over the lines to see corresponding data values.)
Figure 1: Teacher recruitment adverts among secondary schools and colleges in England
In addition, rural schools have shown disproportionately large increases compared to urban or suburban schools (though note that rural schools account for a relatively small proportion of all teachers). That said, all three of these categories have shown substantial increases so far this year (purple line).
We find relatively little difference by local deprivation level (as measured by the IDACI, an index of childhood poverty). For example, compare schools in areas of high deprivation with those in areas of low deprivation. The picture with regard to in-school disadvantage (as measured by the proportions of pupils who are eligible for free school meals, or FSM) is similar: compare high-FSM schools with low-FSM schools.
So the overall trend of hyperactive post-pandemic recruitment is a national one. There are considerable variations between regions, but differences based on socioeconomic factors seem at most to be modest.
What next?
If you have a question or comment then please send us a note: [email protected]. SchoolDash Insights subscribers can continue to follow developments in real time in the Recruitment section. Non-subscribers can request a trial account or a demo. And anyone at all is welcome to sign up for our free monthly-ish newsletter.
Footnotes:
Hire and higher: Schools recruit like never before
8th March 2023 by Timo Hannay [link]
Update 8th March 2023: See also this coverage by Tes.
As we approach peak school recruiting season, which usually reaches a crescendo in late April or early May, this post surveys the current state of the secondary school teacher and technician labour markets in England. To put it mildly, these have been showing unusual behaviour in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In summary:
- The rate at which secondary schools in England have been advertising teacher vacancies has risen sharply since the end of the pandemic. The effect so far has been to reverse all of the shortfall in adverts seen during two years of pandemic-induced disruption, and we haven't yet reached high season for recruitment.
- These effects vary by subject, but large increases have been seen across both STEM (eg, Science, Design & Technology and Computing), and the humanities (eg, Languages, Music/Drama and Religion).
- Technician advertisements, while fewer in number, have seen an even more spectacular rise, with post-pandemic levels of recruiting around 50% higher than before the pandemic and well over 3,000 'excess' adverts over the last two years.
- This is a prelude to a fuller analysis that we will be conducting with the Gatsby Foundation and Teacher Tapp, and publishing in the summer.
SchoolDash Insights subscribers can follow these developments in real time in the Recruitment section. (Non-subscribers are welcome to request a trial account.)
For more information about how these data were gathered, please see this previous post, including Footnote 1.
The year of hiring desperately
Back in the old days (2017-2018), when we first began to track vacancies advertised on secondary school websites, teacher recruitment was a relatively predictable affair. Figure 1 shows the number of teacher vacancy adverts that our systems were able to find each week from September 2017 to February 2023. Notice how similar the two pre-pandemic years (from September 2017 to September 2019) were in size and seasonality.
In contrast, the next two years (September 2019 to September 2021), which were affected by the pandemic, showed noticeably lower numbers of adverts, followed by a big rebound in the last academic year (September 2021 to September 2022) to levels much higher than we saw even before COVID-19 came along. So far this year – bearing in mind that we're still in the foothils of the usual springtime rise in activity – the numbers are greater still.
Figure 1: Teacher recruitment adverts among secondary schools and colleges in England
Figure 2 overlays the current academic year on the previous four years to allow for more direct comparisons. As well as weekly numbers, we can also use this to view cumulative data, which give a clearer indication of how many more or fewer adverts were found in any particular year. Across all subjects, notice how the pandemic years of 2019-2020 (yellow) and 2020-2021 (green) were lower than the last pre-pandemic year, 2018-2019 (red) to the tune of about 5,000-7,000 adverts. Note also that the first post-pandemic year, 2021-2022 (blue) is higher than the pre-pandemic level by around 6,000 adverts. What's more, the current year, 2022-2023 (purple), is currently running at an even higher rate, mainly because of an unusually active autumn term.
We can also use this figure to explore different subject areas. Still using cumulative data, we can see that some of the biggest increases have been seen in Science, Design & Technology and Computing, but also in Languages, Music/Drama, Physical Education, Humanities and Religion. The educational staples of English and Maths also saw increases, but much smaller ones.
(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: Teacher recruitment adverts among secondary schools and colleges in England
So the pandemic decreased teacher recruitment activity, but since then it has bounced back strongly. Where does this leave us overall? Figure 3 shows the cumulative difference in number of teacher adverts relative to the 2017-2018 academic year. In other words, if the numbers we saw in that year had simply repeated themselves in subsequent years, we would get a straight horizontal line. Instead, we see a slight rise during 2018-2019, peaking in spring 2020 at a running total of about 2,000 extra adverts. Then things come crashing down during the first national lockdown in March 2020, and again with the second major lockdown in early 2021. The net effect was about 9,000 fewer teacher vacancy adverts than we might have otherwise expected. However, in the 12 months since spring 2022 we have effectively seen the reverse: huge numbers of extra adverts such that last week, for the first time, the net position surpassed the pre-pandemic peak in February 2020.
To simplify a bit, teacher recruitment nosedived for a year, returned to something more like normal for a year and then skyrocketed for a year. The question now is where it will go next. Given that teachers are restive, that the overall UK labour market is tight and that it is still early in the recruiting season, further relative increases in recruitment activity seem likely.
Figure 3: Cumulative difference in teacher recruitment adverts relative to 2017-2018 academic year
Technician tectonics
Though far fewer in number than teachers, technicians also play essential roles in certain subjects. And here too, the market has been far from normal of late.
Figure 4 shows weekly vacancy advert trends since the 2018-2019 academic year. Looking at cumulative data for all subjects, we see that the first pandemic year of 2019-2020 (yellow line) showed a substantial drop compared to the last pre-pandemic year, 2018-2019 (red), but this rebounded quickly in 2020-2021 (green). The following year, 2021-2022 (blue) showed a huge further increase of about 65% over pre-pandemic levels, and the current academic year (purple) is so far taking a similar trajectory.
The most significant subject areas for technicians are Science, Computing, Design & Technology and Art. All showed huge proportionate increases in 2021-2022 and all are still tracking at higher-than-usual levels during the current academic year.
(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: Technician recruitment adverts among secondary schools and colleges in England
Finally, Figure 5 shows the cumulative difference in number of technician adverts relative to the 2017-2018 academic year. It highlights the truly remarkable recent activity in this market. As for teachers (see Figure 3), 2018-2019 was buoyant compared to the previous year, with several hundred more vacancy adverts. There followed 12 months or so of decline as the pandemic exerted its effect. But the boom that followed this has been extraordinary Over the last two years or so, we have found well over 3,000 additional adverts, a rise of roughly 50% over pre-pandemic baseline levels. So far there's no sign of this trend abating.
Figure 5: Cumulative difference in technician recruitment adverts relative to 2017-2018 academic year
Until next time
All of this is a mere prelude to a much fuller analysis of school recruitment that we will be conducting as soon as this year's peak season has passed. As before, it will be a collaboration with the Gatsby Foundation and Teacher Tapp, and will be published in the summer.
In the meantime, SchoolDash Insights subscribers can follow developments in real time in the Recruitment section. Non-subscribers can request a trial account or a demo. And anyone at all is welcome to sign up for our free monthly-ish newsletter or send us feedback: [email protected].
