Reeves accepts 5.5% teacher pay recommendation

Teachers will get an average £2,500 pay rise from September after ministers accepted a recommendation that salaries increase by 5.5 per cent.

The chancellor Rachel Reeves told Parliament today she had accepted “in full” the recommendations of the School Teachers Review Body.

The STRB report, published today, called for “increases to teachers’ pay of 5.5 per cent at all grades. In addition, a 5.5% increase to all allowance ranges”.

This equates to an increase of more than £2,500 for the average teacher, taking the median salary for 2024-25 to over £49,000, government analysis stated.

£1.2bn extra for schools

Schools will receive “almost £1.2 billion in additional funding to cover their costs” in the 2024-25 financial year.

The Department for Education said would “fully fund” both the rise for teachers and leaders announced today and a proposed increase for support staff.

However Schools Week understands schools will also be expected to use £600 million of “headroom” in their budgets identified by the previous government earlier this year.

The STRB estimated its recommendations would cost around £1.65 billion over a whole school year. That would just be for teacher pay, before support staff pay is taken into account.

However, the £1.2 billion grant to schools only covers the seven-month period from September until the end the financial year in March, at which point the funding for the pay rises will be rolled into the national funding formula.

Negotiations over pay for support staff, who were offered rises of at least £1,290 earlier this year, are still ongoing.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves told Parliament today the new Labour government had found a “£22 billion hole in the public finances”.

She said the government would be “open about the decisions which are needed and the steps that we are taking. That begins with accepting in full the recommendations of the independent pay review bodies, and the details of these awards are being published today.

Chancellor considers STRB timetable reforms

“That is the right decision for the people who work in and most importantly, the people who use our public services, giving hard working staff the pay rises they deserve, while ensuring that we can recruit and retain the people we need.”

But she warned “it should not have taken this long to come to these decisions, and I do not want to be in this position again, so I will consider options to reform the timetable for responding to the pay review bodies in the future”.

A budget will be held on October 30, and Reeves also launched a three-year spending review today.

Today’s decision will likely avert an early clash between the new government and unions, after a series of strikes last year.

Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the National Education Union, said a 5.5 per cent award was a “necessary first step in the reversal of the real terms pay cuts inflicted upon teachers and school leaders during the Conservatives’ time in office”.

“Clearly, there is still some way to go to restore what teachers and school leaders have lost since 2010 and we will expect this to be addressed in future pay rounds.”

But he said the announcement was a “strong signal to the profession about a new course of direction in education”.

“The £1.2 billion investment to fund this pay award will be welcome news to school leaders who are juggling overstretched budgets resulting from years of funding cuts.”

The NEU executive will meet next week to “formally consider the offer and will make a recommendation that members will vote upon in September”.

SEND schools ‘will feel impact’

Paul Whiteman, leader of the NAHT leaders’ union, welcomed the rise and extra funding.

But he warned that “as the government has acknowledged, schools will feel the impact of this uplift differently depending on their unique circumstances”.

DfE assumptions about the affordability of the pay rise are based on national averages, and as revealed before, this ignores the financial situation faced by some settings, particularly special schools that have more staff per pupil.

Last year the government announced a £40 million “hardship fund”, but this was woefully short with most in-need schools missing out.

“It will be important that those already under the most significant financial pressures, such as special educational needs schools, small schools and alternative provision, get extra support where necessary,” Whiteman added.