An Edurio staff experience survey found heads of year and their middle-leader peers reported badly on physical and mental health, and it’s due to workload, says Danni Fothergill
Middle leadership was never meant to carry this much weight. Yet in many schools, it has quietly become the role where accountability, implementation and pastoral responsibility collide, often without the time, authority or protection to match.
Analysis of Edurio’s national staff experience survey from 2024-25, drawing on responses from more than 85,000 school staff in England, reveals a stark pattern.
When asked, “Overall, how well have you felt lately, physically and mentally?”, positive responses were given by 60 per cent of senior leaders, 46 per cent of admin staff, 38 per cent of teaching assistants, 35 per cent of teachers and 34 per cent of middle leaders.
The wider context matters. Schools are operating under sustained and compounding pressure, shaped by the legacy of Covid, funding constraints, workforce shortages and relentless policy change.
Middle leaders are where much of this pressure lands.
Extra responsibilities
Department leads, heads of year and phase leaders are expected to implement reform, manage people, raise outcomes, support staff wellbeing and continue teaching, often without additional time, authority or structural protection.
This pressure is not accidental. As instructional leader and coach Cat Stephens observes, “middle leaders absorbing all the pressure is usually an indication that senior leaders don’t have the balance right between being on the balcony and getting onto the dancefloor”.
Middle leaders are more likely than any other group to feel stressed frequently. And they are among the most likely to say they feel overworked often, reflecting the reality of holding significant leadership responsibility alongside a full or near-full teaching load. Very few report feeling overworked rarely or never.
However, middle leaders are not disengaged. Sixty-one per cent say they feel excited by their work, and 51 per cent say they feel appreciated by leadership. Both figures are higher than for classroom teachers.
And yet only 34 per cent report feeling physically and mentally well.
Limited control
Headteacher Tom Kennedy Fowler points to workload as a key factor, noting that the similarity between teacher and middle leader responses is “indicative of the pressures of a full or almost full teaching load”.
It is also hard to ignore how closely middle leaders’ wellbeing mirrors that of classroom teachers.
Both groups often carry full or near full teaching timetables, with limited control over their time. Senior leaders may face intense strategic pressure, but they typically have greater autonomy and headspace to manage it.
These findings reflect a broader global pattern in which the middle layer consistently reports poorer wellbeing than both senior leaders and those they manage.
But there is some good news. For the first time since the pandemic, overall resignation risk has fallen, and middle leaders are less likely to be considering leaving than last year.
However, 45 per cent still report having considered resigning in the past three months.
Their most common reasons are overwhelming workload, poor work-life balance and feeling undervalued. They are also more likely than other roles to cite dissatisfaction with senior leadership and government policy.
Unsustainable strain
Middle leaders are the engine room of school improvement and the future supply of senior leaders.
If the role is experienced as a prolonged period of unsustainable strain, fewer people will step up.
Where organisations treat middle leadership development as a strategic investment rather than a perk, the impact can be significant.
At Temple Learning Academy, a structured programme combines leadership training, internal professional development and external learning opportunities.
This programme certainly seems to be having an impact on workload as the school scored highly against national benchmarks for managing workload.
The most important question this data raises is not whether middle leaders are struggling.
The better question is who owns the design of roles that remain sustainable under sustained pressure, and what we can learn from the places already getting it right.
Because if we want schools that can thrive, not just cope, middle leadership has to be supported by design, not sustained by endurance alone.
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