Policy options for a long-term teacher pay and financial incentives strategy

Key Findings

• Nominal average teacher pay has grown more slowly compared to wages in the wider economy since 2010. Increasing teacher pay at a higher rate than the expected growth in average earnings would begin to restore relative pay and likely have positive effects on teacher supply.  
• Flattening of the main teacher pay scale by increasing teacher starting salaries at a faster rate than those of more experienced teachers has helped support the Government’s ambition to increase teacher starting salaries to £30,000. Continuing with this approach could be cost-effective as scarce resources are targeted at teachers who are more responsive to changes in pay.  
• A bolder option for pay would be to separate the primary and secondary pay scales. Under all of the pay models considered in this analysis primary teacher targets are met whereas overall secondary recruitment faces significant shortfalls. There are broader considerations around fairness, potential impacts on quality and increases in the gender pay gap, but splitting the payscales could be a cost-effective longer-term option.  
• Bursaries and early career payments boost teacher supply through targeting incentives at subjects and schools where challenges are most acute. We recommend expanding early career payments to all subjects that are not reaching their recruitment target to all schools, with teachers in schools with higher proportions of FSM attracting higher payments.

Related Titles

6.5% pay rise unlikely to solve teacher supply problems on its own, particularly in STEM subjects - Press Release

Sponsor Details

Gatsby Foundation