Further school strikes in England are “now unlikely”, teaching unions have said, as they welcomed the government’s offer of a 5.5% pay rise from September.
The bid is being funded by an additional £1.2bn from the government.
The National Education Union (NEU) called the move a “welcome step in the right direction”.
Others called it a “positive start” but said further efforts would be needed to restore wages after a real-terms decline since 2010.
This is because teachers’ salaries have since fallen in line with the rising cost of living.
According to the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies, the average teacher’s salary is now 6% lower in real terms than it was 14 years ago, and no higher in value than it was in 2001.
Experienced teachers are hardest hit by this decline, with a real-term reduction of 11% since 2010.
In contrast, average incomes are expected to be about 6% higher in 2024 than in 2010 and about 18% higher than in 2001.
A report by the independent pay review body said a 5.5 per cent increase in teachers’ salaries “would represent good value for taxpayers”, claiming there is currently a shortage of teachers in all but three secondary school subjects.
Daniel Kebede, NEU general secretary, said the “fully funded” pay rise signals a “change in direction”.
While it is not a salary “correction,” he says it is “a step on the path” toward one.
Many schools in England had already planned pay rises of around 3% from September. The £1.2bn promised by the government is expected to top up that 5.5% offer.
Where will the money come from?
This includes the Advanced British Standard qualification introduced by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
He said the new qualification would combine A-levels and vocational T-levels and would involve compulsory maths teaching until the age of 18.
The previous government said it would spend £600m over two years on initial work on the now-abolished qualification.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves told the Commons on Monday that the cost of the proposal would “run into billions” over the coming years and that if the government could not afford it, it would not pay for it.
Mr Kebede said the new pay offer would likely be put to NEU members in a formal vote in September, but added that further school strikes were now unlikely.
Last year, teachers across the UK went on strike, including eight days of strike action by NEU members in England.
In addition to avoiding a strike, Reeves and her government colleagues hope the pay offer can help address the teacher recruitment and retention crisis.
Noel Kennedy, headteacher of Thistley Hough Academy in Stoke, says he has already lost sleep over recruiting enough staff.
He says improving salaries is “crucial” to finding and retaining specialist teachers in the profession.
“People want to be paid for an honest day’s work and if the pay doesn’t reflect the effort and hard work they have to put in, then it’s complicated,” he says.
He says the school advertised twice for a science teacher position last year, and each time received no applications.
Instead, they had to travel all the way to Canada to find someone to fill the position.
That person, Alison Turner, says she was initially worried she wouldn’t be able to get a job as a new graduate, but was told by a recruitment agency that UK schools would “welcome her with open arms”.
Teachers in subjects like science and math are hard to come by for many schools as they struggle to recruit and retain teachers.
She said she was “lucky” to live in Stoke because of the “astronomical” difference in living costs some foreign teachers face in London.
Still, she feels “very, very lucky” to be a “young graduate, single and without children” because that is the lifestyle her salary allows her.
Colleagues who support families with their salaries “are fantastic at making limited resources work,” she says, “but it’s just a stress they shouldn’t have.”
In addition to the salary announcements, the Treasury also confirmed that VAT at the standard rate of 20% will be added to private school fees from 1 January 2025.
Labour has pledged to use the money raised to recruit 6,500 new teachers.
Additional reporting by Hope Rhodes.
