Teacher pay will rise by 3.5 per cent from September 2026, but schools will be on the hook for part of the cost. The government’s long-awaited response to the school teachers’ review body (STRB) report for 2026 confirms a rise of at least 3.5 per cent from September for all school teachers. Some staff on the unqualified pay scale will receive larger rises following government plans to lift the bottom of the scale by 5 per cent. Teachers will then receive a further 3 per cent pay rise from September next year. But despite unions threatening to strike unless the rise is fully funded, the government has confirmed schools will be expected to fund around a third of teacher and support staff awards from existing budgets. Support staff were recently offered a rise of 3.3 per cent, backdated to April. This will mean schools will have to find about £460 million from their budgets, the National Education Union (NEU) estimates. The DfE said that schools, “like the rest of the public sector”, will need to “play their part” and find the first 1 per cent of each pay award “through continued efforts to maximise value from their budgets”. Ministers will hand schools additional funding of £700 million to cover September to March next year, rising to £1.1 billion for the full 2027-28 financial year. However, this will also be expected to help schools pay for the impact of the 2027 pay award, and schools will also be expected to use 0.8 per cent of “headroom” identified by the DfE to pay for the increases. This additional funding will also come from existing DfE budgets, rather than being new money for the department from the Treasury, said Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary. No review mechanism The STRB rejected a review mechanism for the proposed 2027 award, which it said “could mitigate economic shocks, but may create uncertainty for financial and workforce planning”. It instead said that if economic or labour market conditions diverged significantly from forecasts, it should be reflected in the remit for the 2028 award. It proposed an indicative rise of 3 per cent in 2028-29, but this would be decided in the future. If it went ahead, this would mean a total increase of 9.8 per cent over three years. In its initial evidence to the STRB, the DfE had called for a 6.5 per cent pay rise, spread over three years. It said schools would be expected to “realise and sustain better value from existing spend” to help deliver this. But modelling by the department later showed schools would be able to afford a rise of just 2.7 per cent over the next two years. Phillipson said the multi-year deal for teachers, “backed by significant additional investment, shows the immense value we place in our teachers, while giving schools and colleges certainty over pay and their budgets”. Whether the announcement will be enough to hold off strike action remains to be seen. The NEU previously said it would formally ballot for strike action in October if the government did not provide a “fully funded pay offer…that exceeds inflation”, with “sufficient funding for schools to prevent redundancies and rises in workload”. An NEU spokesperson said the union was “considering all options”. Inflation forecast to rise As of May, UK inflation sat at 2.8 per cent, but latest Bank of England modelling shows it could rise as high as 3.7 per cent by the end of this year as the economic effects of the Middle East conflict are felt.. Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the NEU, said: “Let us be clear: a partially funded settlement still means cuts to education, and the NEU will never accept that. “With inflation set to rise, members know this offer is not the decisive shift needed to reverse real-terms pay cuts since 2010 or restore the competitiveness of teacher pay.” Matt Wrack, the general secretary of the NASUWT, said the union would consider its next steps. “All options, including possible industrial action, remain on the table.” The STRB typically makes pay recommendations on an annual basis, but this year ministers asked it to make a multi-year recommendation to help schools with longer-term budget planning. Last year, the government accepted the STRB’s recommendation of a 4 per cent pay rise for September 2025. It provided additional funding of £615 million to help cover this, but ordered schools to meet about one quarter of that rise from their own budgets. Pepe Di’Iasio, the general secretary of the leaders’ union ASCL, welcomed the pay awards and the “greater certainty” brought about by a two-year announcement. But he said it had been “undermined…by how late in the summer term” it has come. Award should be earlier Under the previous government, pay announcements were consistently made in July, but the Labour government vowed to bring these forward. “We really need to return to a timetable that is completed much earlier in the academic year,” Di’Iasio said. He said the union would speak to leaders as finding the cash to help fund pay rises would be “very challenging for many schools”. Paul Whiteman, the general secretary of the leaders’ union NAHT, said while there was “some way to go to achieve our aim of restoring the value of pay to 2010 levels”, the uplift was a step in the right direction “so long as we don’t see a big spike in inflation”. As revealed by Schools Week this week, the government has also announced plans to control academy trust executive pay. From September, trusts will need to seek government approval before advertising roles over £174,000, or awarding performance-related bonuses over £25,000. The DfE says this would “bring…the sector in line with other public sector workforces including the NHS and colleges”. But the £174,000 rule will only apply to new appointments, advertised from September 1. The pay of incumbent chief executives will not be cut. Annual pay increases “will also be brought in line with the wider school workforce, meaning executives will not be able to receive pay rises higher than those set for classroom teachers”. “A start…but not enough’ Phillipson said it was “also right” that executive pay did not rise faster than teacher pay – “or set at excessive levels in the first place”. Tighter controls would end “unjustifiable” executive salaries, helping to level the playing field for school staff and “drive every pound towards classrooms”. Kebede described the cap as “a start, but…not enough”, highlighting that it would not apply to those already on salaries above £174,000. Stacey Booth, a national officer for the union GMB, said limiting trust CEO pay was “common sense and common decency”. But she added that “the proof will be in the pudding”. However, Leora Cruddas, the chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, criticised the changes, which she said the government “appears to have rushed into…without consulting with school trusts to understand their impact”. She said while trusts must be careful with the money they received from the government, the cap harmed trusts’ ability to recruit and retain strong leaders. Phillipson asked the STRB to look at the current working hours for teachers and leaders. Directed time in teachers’ pay and conditions stipulates that they cannot be “directed” to work more than 1,265 hours across the school year. In reality, average working hours are much greater. In their report STRB proposed a “twin track” approach, including “immediate clarity and governance measures” within the current framework. These include INSET day flexibility, such as twilight sessions and split-day training. In its second approach, this time on leader working time protections, the STRB said the government should reinforce the existing work-life balance clause, including the right to uninterrupted breaks and clarifying that requirements for weekend work should be exceptional and limited to emergencies. DfE officials will consider the full scope of the wider views and suggestions in future policy development, Phillipson said. Some of the remaining ideas include stronger part-time protections and guidance on reasonable additional hours. After “careful consideration”, the DfE has retained the current salary safeguarding provision for teachers and leaders. Teachers whose pay is due to decrease because of a change in circumstances, school restructure or move to a different school under the same employer, at present have their pay topped up to its old level for three years. The STRB recommended this be reduced to at least one academic year. “If a change which gives rise to salary safeguarding is implemented after the commencement of an academic year, salary safeguarding should apply for the remainder of the academic year in which the change is implemented, plus the following full academic year.” But Phillipson did accept a recommendation to allow maintained schools to optionally offer “modest recognition schemes”. Academies already had greater flexibilities, such as offering recruitment or performance bonuses.