Primary teacher recruitment target missed by biggest gap on record

The government has missed its primary teacher recruitment targets by the biggest gap on record – however overall recruitment has improved from last year’s disastrous numbers.

Initial teacher training census statistics published this morning show just 88 per cent of the primary target was reached, the lowest since 2010-11, when current records date back to.

For secondary subjects, the government met just 62 per cent of its target in 2024-25 – but this is actually up from 48 per cent last year.

It means the secondary recruitment target has now been missed 11 out of the last 12 years.

Overall, the total target for trainee recruitment for both primary and secondary was missed by 31 per cent. It’s an improvement from 40 per cent last year.

However, there were 27,746 new entrants to ITT this year, up 5 per cent from 26,432 in 2023-24.

The Department for Education said this reverses a trend of year-on-year decreases since the pandemic. But entrants remain below pre-pandemic levels.

DfE said the secondary increase was due to an increase in new entrants, but also because targets were cut from 26,360 to 23,955 for this year.

For primary, DfE attributed this to a decrease in entrants, but also a slight increase in the target from 9,180 to 9,400.

Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary at ASCL school leaders’ union, said the primary recruitment was of “great concern” and that problems in finding trainee teachers “continue to be grave”.

He said it will be “extremely difficult” for the Labour government to “achieve its aim of recruiting 6,500 new teachers if we cannot even meet current recruitment targets”.

At secondary, government met its target in just five out of 17 subjects – English, biology, history, physical education and classics.

Many subjects saw improvements against their targets. But drama saw a big drop – meeting just 48 per cent of its target compared to 76 per cent last year.

Business studies achieved 15 per cent of its target, compared to 17 per cent in 2023-24. For chemistry this was 62 per cent compared to 63 per cent last year.

But physics, one of the worst recruited subjects, saw a boost from 16 per cent to 30 per cent of its target being reached.

Jack Worth, school workforce lead at the National Foundation for Educational Research, said the figures “show vast under-recruitment to teacher training in a wide range of subjects for a third straight year since the pandemic.

“Without a comprehensive and funded strategy, the government is highly unlikely to ‘meet its pledge to recruit 6,500 new teachers’.”

However there was a 50 per cent rise in postgraduate teaching apprenticeship trainees – rising from 957 to 1,432.

DfE said this continues a “trend of rapid year-on-year growth” since it was introduced in 2018-19. It accounted for six per cent of the postgraduate recruitment total, up from 4 per cent last year.