At the start of the global pandemic, there was a rapid decline in teacher recruitment in March ’20. From mid-March to the start of May, there was 3,000 fewer teacher ads on school websites than during the same time frame in 2019, which equated to an overall fall of 39%.
However shortly after this, came a boom in teacher recruitment in all 3 of the areas we operate. This was shown in the rise of the total number of people starting initial teacher training courses between Jan ’20 and Jan ’21:
- London - 39% Rise
- South East - 30% Rise
- West Midlands - 17% Rise
This has only continued since, with January this year showing a 26% increase compared to January last year.
A consideration which is slowing down the increase is the government making cuts to training bursaries by as much as 73% and totally removing some. This being said, it has proven to only make a small dent in the increase of the sector.
