Secondary school recruitment in 2024/25 (update)

8th July 2025 by Timo Hannay [link]

In April we issued our annual review of school recruitment in collaboration with Teacher Tapp and the Gatsby Foundation. This year's report was released earlier than usual in order to provide greater visibility on market conditions for schools and staff still making decisions as we entered what has historically been high season for recruitment in late April and early May. As we noted then, recruitment activity had been subdued, not only compared to recent post-pandemic years, which have seen unusually high numbers of school recruitment adverts, but also relative to the most recent pre-pandemic year in 2018/19. This trend has, if anything, become even more marked during May and June. As the current academic year draws to a close, this post and our new joint report provide an update and a full-year view on school recruitment trends in 2024/25.

In summary, we find that:

• Consistent with our report in April, the number of teacher and technician recruitment adverts appearing on the websites of secondary schools and colleges in England has remained very subdued. If anything, this trend has grown stronger in recent weeks.
• As a result, overall teacher recruitment this year has fallen steeply from its recent post-pandemic high. Current activity is similar to mid-pandemic levels. Indeed, teacher vacancy adverts in 2024/25 are now tracking below even the lowest mid-pandemic year in 2020/21.
• Teacher recruitment has also become less seasonal, with a greater proportion of activity in the autumn term (September to December) and less in the summer term (April to June).
• Technician recruitment is similarly lacklustre and is also tracking below mid-pandemic levels.
• We continue to hypothesise that these trends are caused by a combination of constrained school budgets, the prospect of falling school rolls, loose labour markets elsewhere in the economy, and an 'echo' effect arising from historically low school staff turnover during the pandemic in 2020-22.

Teacher trends

Figure 1 shows the weekly numbers of teacher recruitment adverts found on the websites of secondary schools in England during academic years from 2018/19 (red) to 2024/25 (black). (For a note on how these data were collected, see Footnote 1 of our previous post.) The normal pre-pandemic pattern seen in 2018/19 was greatly reduced during the pandemic, reaching a minimum in 2020/21 (green) before rebounding back to new heights in 2022/23 (dark blue). Having then fallen back somewhat in 2023/24 (purple), activity has reduced again during the current 2024/25 year to levels below even those seen during the pandemic. (Show all years again.)

These year-on-year changes are even clearer when viewed as cumulative numbers of adverts.

(Use the menus below to view weekly or cumulative data, and to select different subject areas. Click on the figure legend to hide or view individual academic years or to show all of them together. Hover over the lines to see corresponding data values.)

Figure 2 shows the changing seasonality between the most recent pre-pandemic year in 2018/19 (red columns) and the current academic year, 2024/25 (blue). Compared to before the pandemic, activity has become less seasonal, with proportional increases in the autumn term (September to December) and corresponding reductions in the summer term (April to June).

(Click on the figure legend to hide or view individual academic years or to show both of them together. Hover over the columns to see corresponding data values.)

Figure 3 show changes in numbers of teacher vacancy adverts by subject since 2018/19 (red columns) and since 2023/24 (blue). There were reductions across all subject areas, but the largest percentage changes were seen in English and languages, while areas showing large drops in absolute numbers of adverts also inluded science and maths.

(Use the menu below to switch between percentage changes and changes in numbers of adverts. Hover over the columns to see corresponding data values and numbers of adverts.)

Figure 4 shows relative advertising rates by school location or type (controlling for different teacher population sizes). Activity is down everywhere, but across regions it remains highest in London and the South East. It is also higher among schools serving poorer families.

(Use the menus below to explore different school groups and subjects. Hover over the columns to see corresponding data values.)

Technicians too

Technician recruitment has historically followed a different seasonal pattern to that of teachers, with peaks in June and September, on either side of the summer holidays. As shown in Figure 5, which shows weekly numbers of technician adverts, this was the case in 2018/19, before the pandemic (red line). Technician advert numbers then fell during the the COVID-19 years, reaching a low point in 2019/20 (yellow) before bouncing back to extraordinarily high levels in 2021/22 (light blue). This year, 2024/25 (black), they have fallen back to even lower levels than those seen during the period of the pandemic. (Show all years again.)

As we saw above for teacher adverts, these year-on-year changes in technician recruitment are perhaps most clearly seen by viewing cumulative numbers of adverts.

(Use the menus below to view weekly or cumulative data, and to select different subject areas. Click on the figure legend to hide or view individual academic years. Hover over the lines to see corresponding data values.)

Figure 6 shows the seasonality of technician adverts in 2018/19 (red columns) and 2024/25 (blue). Here too we see slight increases in relative activity during the autumn term (September to December) and even into January and February, with corresponding reductions later in the school year (March to June). However, this effect is less pronounced than that for teachers.

(Click on the figure legend to hide or view individual academic years or to show all of them together. Hover over the columns to see corresponding data values.)

Figure 7 shows the change in technician adverts since 2018/19 (red columns) and since 2023/24 (blue). In percentage terms, the fall since the pandemic has been largest in technology and science, but compared to last year, arts have fallen by just as much. In terms of absolute numbers of adverts, science and technology have seen the largest falls.

(Use the menu below to switch between percentage changes and changes in numbers of adverts. Hover over the columns to see corresponding data values and numbers of adverts.)

Figure 8 shows relative technician advertising rates by school location and type. By region, the East of England and the South East continue to have the highest levels. In contrast to teacher vacancies, schools serving poorer families, and those located in poorer areas, have been hiring technicians at lower rates.

(Use the menus below to explore different school groups and subjects. Hover over the columns to see corresponding data values.)

As described in our last blog post on SEN provision, there is evidence that some domains of school hiring – specifically, SENCOs and psychologists – are at historic highs. But this does not appear to be true of classroom teachers or technicians, at least in secondary schools. The summer holiday period is always quiet for school recruiting, but whether the new school year that begins in September will start with a bang or a whimper remains to be seen.

As a reminder, do read our full joint report on recruiting trends in the 2024/25 school year. Looking forward, subscribers to SchoolDash Insights can continue to follow these trends in real time via the Recruitment section. If you'd like to hear about more analyses like this one, sign up for our free email newsletter. And speaking of email, we welcome your thoughts – please write to: [email protected].