The Government has accepted the School Teachers’ Review Body’s (STRB) recommendation for a 4% increase in teacher pay in England from September 2025. But beyond the headline, what does this mean for teachers and schools?
What is happening to teacher pay?
All pay ranges and advisory points for teachers and leaders will rise by 4% from 1 September 2025. This includes classroom teachers, unqualified teachers, and school leaders. The same 4% uplift will apply to allowances like TLRs (Teaching and Learning Responsibilities).
This means, for example, a teacher on the Main Pay Range (MPR) point 1 in England (outside London) will move from £31,650 to £32,916. The DfE have provided a simple pay calculator here.
What about School Support Staff?
The teacher pay award only applies to school teachers, but the additional funding schools will receive also takes into account the current 2025-26 pay offer for support staff, which is currently under negotiation.
Unlike teachers, most school support staff are currently employed on the pay and conditions of the National Joint Council (NJC) for Local Government Services. The NJC is a negotiating body made up of representatives from trade unions and local government employers.
What did the STRB recommend?
The STRB recommended a 4% increase across the board. It stated that this level was needed to improve recruitment and retention, keep teaching pay competitive with other graduate and professional occupations and offer value for money for the taxpayer by helping to avoid the long-term costs of teacher shortages
It rejected the Government’s proposed 2.8% increase as too low and warned that it would jeopardise efforts to recruit 6,500 additional teachers.
What was the Government response?
In a statement to parliament on 22nd May, Secretary of State for Edcuation Bridget Phillipson said that the Government would accept the 4% recommendation in full. They had previously submitted evidence to the STRB saying that they thought 2.8% would be an appropriate pay award.
Is it fully funded?
No. Of the 4% pay rise, the government announced that a quarter, i.e. 1% out of the 4%, would have to be funded by schools existing budgets. They announced that £615 million would be given to schools to help fund the pay rise.
Where is the money coming from?
This is where it gets a little tricky so we’ll do our best to explain and make it clear…
| Proportion | Funding Source | Explanation |
| 1.7% | ‘Extra’ money from the DfE budget | This has been found from existing DfE budgets and cutting spending on other initiatives that schools may have benefitted from. This is not new money allocated by the Treasury and we are yet to know the full extent of what has been cut from other DfE schemes. |
| 1.3% | Existing budget headroom | The DfE estimates that schools would be able to afford 1.3% of any pay rise from ‘headroom’ in their existing budgets. Many school leaders have argued that this headroom does not exist and has been eaten up by other cost pressures rising and falling pupil rolls. |
| 1% | Efficiency savings from existing schools budgets | Arguably the most controversial, schools have been tasked with finding further efficiency savings from their budgets through productivity gains and better procurement. |
1.7% + 1.3% + 1% = 4%
The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that once you take into account the support staff pay offer of 3.2%, schools will need find savings of around £400 million across the sector which is roughly 1% of their budget.
How does the pay deal compare to other sectors?
The pay offer is in line with other public sector pay awards but is still behind wage growth in the private sector that currently stands at 5.6%. One way to evaluate the offer is to consider whether it represents a real term increase i.e. taking inflation into account. With inflation currently at 3.5%, the 4% increase represents a slight real terms increase of 0.5%. However, teacher salaries on average are still about 8% lower in real terms than they were in 2010.
What have been the responses from trade unions?
The reaction so far has been measured with a general welcome of the acceptance of the recommendations but with a number of concerns over funding. All had been calling for any pay rise to be fully funded and this is not the case here. Concerns also exist about cuts made within the DfE to fund some of these pay rises. As more details on how the pay rise is funded emerge, there may be stronger reactions.
NEU – “It is still the case that the pay award is not fully funded. In many schools this will mean cuts in service provision to children and young people, job losses, and additional workloads. Unless the government commit to fully funding the pay rise then it is likely that the NEU will register a dispute with the government on the issue of funding.”
NASUWT – “Teachers in the NASUWT will be wanting to assess the details and the Union will be carefully considering the implications of today’s announcement. We need to see long-term investment in education and there is a substantial risk that many schools will be placed in severe financial difficulty this year and next if any financial shortfall they experience is not addressed with extra funding.”
ASCL – “The funding allocated to schools does not fully cover the cost of this pay award – so this represents a further cut to school budgets which are already under a great deal of pressure.”
NAHT – “We are pleased to see that the teachers’ pay review body has again listened to our evidence and recommended a pay award higher than the DfE’s initial recommendation, and that the government has accepted that recommendation. School leaders are rightly concerned about the affordability of this year’s pay uplift. The news that the schools will be receiving additional funding to help cover some of the costs is welcome, but they will remain concerned that they will still need to find a proportion from within their existing budget allocations.”
Will there be teacher strikes?
At this stage, it is still a little early to tell but it appears that the NEU will ballot members on industrial action given their statement above about raising a dispute. The NASUWT may also consider action. It seems likely that both will wait until after the June Spending Review to see the broader picture on education funding before moving to a formal ballot.
Any strike action would not happen until the new academic year at the earliest due to the time it takes to conduct a formal ballot.
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Alistair Wood
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