How are schools adapting to fewer pupils?

8th October 2026 by Timo Hannay [link]

Update 8th October 2026: See also this coverage from Schools Week.

Birth rates across the UK are continuing their long-term decline. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reports that:

"By mid-2034, the number of children (those aged from 0 to 15 years) is projected to decrease by 1.6 million (negative 12.7%), from 12.6 million to 11.0 million."

This will inevitably have a big impact on England's schools. Our aim here is to build on our previous analyses (the last of which was in 2024) to provide an overview of the effects and responses so far.

In summary, we find that:

• Birth rates have continued their decline, though contrary to popular belief, this hasn't had much effect on the total number of schools in England. However, it has had a big impact on occupancy rates, which have been falling steadily among primary schools.
• Importantly, this trend has not been evenly distributed, with certain types of schools and locations showing bigger declines than others. In some cases there is a "Matthew effect" in which school groups that already have low occupancy rates are falling faster.
• To some extent, the decline in state school rolls has been cushioned by an even greater fall in independent school enrolment. Unlike the state sector, the number of independent schools is already in decline.
• The fall seen among primary schools is now starting to feed into secondary schools, where we can expect similar effects to play out in the coming years.
• School staff numbers have not yet fallen as far or as fast as pupil numbers. This appears unsustainable, especially given chronic pressure on school budgets.
• The silver lining, at least for families, is that admissions rates for both primary and secondary schools have been nudging up and it's increasingly a buyers' market. However, there's still a great deal of variability by location and school. Below we provide some interactive maps for you to explore these national and local patterns for yourself.

 

Pupils: Decline and fall

Figure 1 shows the numbers of live births in England and Wales (red columns) and the corresponding size of each state school cohort in England (blue). The latter are lower mainly because they exclude independent schools in England and all schools in Wales. (For details on why the gap has fluctuated, see the note below the figure. Also bear in mind that birth rates use calendar years while school cohorts use academic years, so the correspondences are only approximate.)

Unsurprisingly, school cohort sizes track birth rates quite closely. With only a brief blip after the Covid pandemic in 2021 (what else was there to do during lockdown?), birth rates have fallen almost continuously for well over a decade, albeit with a flattening in the rate of decline in more recent years. In the absence of large-scale immigration, which seems unlikely to say the least, we should expect school cohort sizes to continue to fall.

(Click on the figure legend to turn each data set on or off. Hover over the columns to see corresponding data values.)

Figure 2 shows how these demographic waves have worked their way through schools between 2019 and 2026. Looking at each year in turn shows these larger and smaller cohorts passing into, through, and then out of the school system: 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026.

It is important to bear in mind that falling intakes at Reception year do not immediately reduce the total school population. For this, what matters is the difference in size between the incoming Reception cohort and the outgoing Year 11 cohort. But clearly, over time, smaller incoming cohorts will eventually result in a reduced school population. In England's case the tipping point for the system as a whole arrived as recently as 2024 – though it was much earlier for primary schools and is only now starting to arrive in secondary schools.

(Use the menu to select a year. Hover over the columns to see corresponding data values.)

Figure 3 shows an alternative view on the same data: namely, how total pupil numbers have changed over the period within each year group. (Note that in order to show these changes more clearly, the vertical axis is not zero-based.) Reception and Year 1 cohorts have shrunk markedly, while those in Year 5 and Year 6 have been broadly stable. At the same time, pupil numbers in Year 10 and Year 11 have risen strongly. (Show all year groups again.) So depending on where in the system you sit, the picture has looked very different.

The net result is that total primary schools rolls have fallen every year since 2019 (from 4.56m to 4.33m in 2026), while secondary school rolls rose between 2019 and 2025 (from 3.31m to 3.67m) before dipping slightly to 3.66m in 2026. The total state school population from Reception to Year 11 peaked in 2024 at 8.15m and has since been in overall decline. The biggest effects are therefore still to come, especially for secondary schools.

(Hover over the graph to see corresponding data values. Click on the figure legend to turn individual lines on or off; double-click to see one line on its own.)

These reductions in state school rolls have been somewhat offset by independent schools, which have been declining even faster and thus fallen as a proportion of all school places, as shown in Figure 4.

Around 2% of primary pupils and 10% of secondary pupils attend an independent (ie, private, fee-paying) schools, giving an overall national average across both phases of roughly 6%. Across England as a whole, this has declined in recent years, from 6.1% in 2019 to 5.5% in 2025. These proportions vary widely by region, with the highest independent school attendance rates in London and the South East and the lowest in the North East, with other regions in between – and strikingly stratified. (Show all regions again.)

The main point for our current purposes is that across every region, independent school share has declined in recent years. There was also a noticeable dip in the trajectory from 2024, which is when the government introduced VAT on independent school fees.

(Hover over the graph to see corresponding data values. Click on the figure legend to turn individual lines on or off; double-click to see one line on its own.)

As shown in Figure 5, this has resulted in a decline in primary school occupancy rates across all regions, whilst for secondary schools recent increases in occupancy have ground to halt and begun to reverse. (Note that in order to show these changes more clearly, the vertical axis is not zero-based.)

(Use the menu to switch between primary and secondary schools. Click on the figure legend to turn individual lines on or off; double-click to show one line on its own. Hover over the graph to see corresponding values.)

But these effects do not apply equally to all schools. Figure 6 shows 2019 school occupancy rates (the number of pupils as a percentage of reported school capacity; horizontal axis) and the changes in these occupancy rates between 2019 and 2026 (vertical axis) for different types of primary school. The large grey dot in the centre represents all state primary schools, which were at 95.6% occupancy in 2019, a proportion that fell by 6.5 percentage points in the period up to 2026.

But if we group schools by size or Ofsted rating, we can see that smaller schools and those with lower Ofsted ratings tended to show not only lower occupancy rates in 2019, but also steeper declines since then – an instance of the Matthew effect. In contrast, trends by academy status, faith status and level of urbanisation tend to run the other way – ie, schools with lower occupancy rates have declined less, or even grown, reducing disparities. In the case of free schools and non-Christian faith schools this is likely to be because many of them have been recently established and are still growing.

(Click on the figure legend to turn different groups on or off; double-click to show one group on its own. Hover over the dots to see corresponding labels and data values.)

Figure 7 shows corresponding data for secondary schools. The large grey dot in the centre shows that occupancy in 2019 was below 90%, but has since grown by over 5 percentage points. Once again the situation varies by school type and location, but in most cases the dots tend to slope from the top left to the bottom right. In other words, school groups that began with the lowest occupancy rates have tended to rise the most, reducing disparities – see for example trends by grammar school status, in-school deprivation level, proportions of low-attaining pupils, academy status, single-sex status and faith status. (The main exception is Ofsted rating.) This appears to be in large part because secondary pupils numbers have been growing, and popular school groups were already at or beyond capacity, resulting in much of the additional provision coming from under-utilised schools. As secondary pupil numbers begin to fall, it is likely that disparities will widen again, as already evident among primary schools.

(Click on the figure legend to turn different groups on or off; double-click to show one group on its own. Hover over the dots to see corresponding labels and data values.)

Of course, school occupancy rates present a varied picture not just by region, but all the way down to local areas and individual schools. This is also the scale that concerns most people. Figure 8 shows all mainstream state secondary schools in England, colour-code by their occupancy rates in the 2025/26 academic year: white = low, blue = high.

Use the menu to select a region or regions to explore, then pan and zoom the map to find a location of interest. Notice how the mix of colours changes, and how high- and low-occupancy schools often exist side by side. Hover over individual dots to see school information, and click on them to go to the relevant school record on our companion website for families, The Schools Guide. (You can use the menu to display schools from all regions at once, but this might reduce the responsiveness of the map.)

 

Schools: Steady as she goes

Since school occupancy has been falling among primary schools, and doing so unevenly, you could be forgiven for thinking that the number of schools must surely be going down too. But you'd be wrong, as indicated in Figure 9. This shows the total numbers of schools in England since 2019. The number of primary schools has fluctuated a little from year to year, but actually risen very slightly between 2019 and 2026. That said, the composition has changed, with LA-maintained schools declining to be replaced by converter and sponsor-led academies (usually the same school under a new guise and a new administrative framework). New free schools have also added to the mix. In contrast, but consistent with the picture painted in Figure 4 above, independent schools have declined in number. (Show all school groups again.)

Secondary schools have been going through a similar shuffling whilst changing almost not at all in terms of total number. Unlike primary schools, academies are much more established among secondary schools and LA-maintained schools are relatively rare. Like primary, secondary independent schools are falling in number, albeit more gradually. (Show all school groups again.)

(Use the menu below to switch between primary and secondary schools. Click on the figure legend to turn individual school groups on or off; double-click to show one group on its own. Hover over the graph to see corresponding values.)

If there hasn't been much change in the number of schools then what about the number of staff? Figure 10 shows the mean numbers of full-time equivalent (FTE) staff in teaching and support roles. Among primary schools, teaching staff numbers have been in gradual decline while support staff numbers have been flat. Among secondary schools, both teaching and support staff numbers have been gradually rising. (Show both roles again.) Our recent analyses of recruiting trends, which showed exceptionally low secondary school hiring in 2025/26, suggests that situation might now be ending.

(Use the menu below to switch between primary and secondary schools. Click on the figure legend to turn individual roles on or off; double-click to show one type on its own. Hover over the graph to see corresponding values.)

As shown in Figure 11, the net result of these shifts in pupil, school and staff numbers is that the ratios of pupils to teachers and adults have been falling among primary schools whilst staying more or less flat among secondary schools. Given the continuing decline in pupil numbers described above along with chronic pressure on school budgets, this seems unlikely to be sustainable in the long term. In other words, schools as a whole will likely need to shed more staff.

(Use the menu below to switch between primary and secondary schools. Click on the figure legend to turn individual lines on or off; double-click to show one line on its own. Hover over the graph to see corresponding values.)

 

Admissions: A buyers' market

Falling pupil and staff numbers feel like bad news, but there's a silver lining to this cloud for those looking for a school place this autumn or winter. (In most local authority areas, the application deadline for entry to a state secondary school in 2027 is 31st October 2026, and for primary schools it's 15th January 2027, so we're in high season.)

Figure 12 shows the proportion of applicants who received an offer from their first-choice state school. Among primary schools these have been nudging up from already quite high levels, and doing so across all regions.

Among secondary schools historic admissions rates have been lower and recent rises have been both smaller and less widespread, but given that the demographic changes already impacting primary are about to arrive in secondary, we might reasonably expect admissions rates to increase here too.

Another interesting aspect of school admissions evident in Figure 12 is the fact that, across both primary and secondary, admissions rates in London (dark blue line) are much lower than for other regions. This is for not entirely negative reasons: London contains an exceptionally high density of popular schools, and parents can list up to six of them in their applications (three or four ranked preferences are typical elsewhere). This leads London parents to aim high even when the chances of getting a place at their first-choice school seems low. The upside is that even their second- or third-choice schools are likely to be quite good.

(Use the menu below to switch between primary and secondary schools. Click on the figure legend to turn individual lines on or off; double-click to show one line on its own. Hover over the graph to see corresponding values.)

As for occupancy rates, admissions rates also vary greatly not just by region but by locality and school. Figure 13 shows mainstream state secondary schools in England, colour-code by their admissions rates in the current 2026/27 academic year: blue = low, white = high. It's striking just how many schools gave offers to more or less 100% of their first-place-preference applicants (white dots). This is more common in rural and suburban areas, where school choice is limited, but less so in major conurbations, where there is more competition between schools and some become heavily over-subscribed (blue dots).

As for the similar map in Figure 8, use the menu below to select a region or regions to explore, then pan and zoom the map to find a location of interest. Hover over individual dots to see school information, and click on them to go to the relevant school record on our companion website for families, The Schools Guide.

As pupils and their parents or carers attend open days, consider educational futures and complete their application forms, we hope that this analysis provides insights into the factors driving school provision, choice and admissions. As always, we welcome your feedback: [email protected].