Investigating job roles in the further education workforce
17 March 2026
The further education (FE) sector plays a key role in delivering technical and academic training to post-16 students in England. However, our current understanding of the composition and structure of the FE workforce remains limited. In addition, little is currently known about the potential for streamlining roles in FE to bolster recruitment and retention across the sector.
This research draws on the Further Education Workforce Data Collection (FEWDC) to address the gap in understanding of the composition and structure of the FE workforce and provide a comprehensive quantitative assessment of the range of job roles in the FE workforce.
Key Findings
- There is significant variability in the job roles and sub-roles reported across colleges. While most settings are likely to require staff who fulfil similar functions, this points to the potential to have more consistency in how job roles are structured and described across the sector.
- There is variation in salaries both within and across roles and sub-roles within the FE workforce. In 2022/23, median earnings (annualised and adjusted by FTE) vary widely from Instructors (£25,452) and Progress Tutors (£25,594) to Teachers (£34,875).
- Salaries do not tend to vary by subject taught, despite differences in recruitment challenges across subjects.
- The FE teaching workforce is much older, much more likely to work part-time and has a more even gender split than the secondary school teaching workforce.