Teacher Labour Market in England Report Launch Webinar

You can watch a recording of the webinar below:

Since 2019, NFER has published an annual report on the teacher labour market in England. The report aims to monitor the progress the school system in England is making towards meeting the teacher supply challenge by measuring the key indicators and trends of teacher supply and working conditions.

To coincide with the publication of the Teacher Labour Market in England 2023, we held an online event, chaired by the House of Commons Education Select Committee Chair Robin Walker MP, where we revealed the findings from the latest in our series of annual reports, highlighting the latest trends in recruitment, retention, pay and workload. A panel of education experts also reflected on the findings and gave their thoughts and recommendations on what can be done to ensure that recruitment and retention to the teaching profession can be enhanced. There was also an opportunity to ask the panellists questions.

Our panel included:

• Robin Walker MP, Chair of the House of Commons Education Select Committee
• Niamh Sweeney, Deputy General Secretary, National Education Union
• Evelyn Forde, President, Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) and Chair, Commission on Teacher Retention at Education Support.
• Ed Dorrell, Director at Public First

More on our guests:

Jack Worth is Lead Economist at the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER). An expert on the school workforce, Jack has authored a number of publications at NFER analysing the recruitment, retention and development of teachers in England. He has a strong interest in teacher retention, recently completing a major programme of research to understand the dynamics of the teacher workforce in England.

Jack’s research is regularly cited in parliament and by media outlets, recently including the BBC, ITV, The Financial Times, The Telegraph, The Daily Express, The Mirror, TES, Schools Week and more. Jack tweets at @JackWorthNFER.

Niamh Sweeney is the first elected Deputy General Secretary of the NEU. She was elected to the ATL Executive in 2010 and represented the Union on the General Council of the TUC before being elected President of the NEU (ATL Section) from 2017 – 2018.

Niamh initially worked in the book publishing industry and then in the youth and community sector in the Republic of Ireland, before moving to Cambridgeshire to work as a Youth Worker in the Criminal Justice System. She trained to be a teacher in Post 16 Education in 2001 and was a teacher of Criminology and Health & Social Care at Long Road Sixth Form College in Cambridge up until this year. Niamh tweets at @Niamhms23

Ed Dorrell is a Director at Public First. Before taking up this role, he was one of the most experienced and respected education journalists in Britain. He was deputy editor of the Times Educational Supplement (TES) for seven years, a role he combined with being comment editor and before that he was news editor for five years. He offers high-value counsel and insight on media affairs, public opinion and qualitative research to many of Public First’s major education clients including Unison, the Sutton Trust, the International Baccalaureate and Education Support, for whom is he running the Teacher Retention Commission. He also writes a weekly column on public policy and policy for the Independent. Ed tweets at @Ed_Dorrell