Pay freeze for senior teachers in England set to continue

As reported by the Guardian, new plans by the Department for Education (DfE) will increase new teacher pay, at the cost of more experienced teachers and education staff

Decade-long pay freezes will continue for school leaders in England if the new plans by the government are introduced, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

New proposals submitted to the teachers’ pay review board will result in a 14% real-term salary cut for experienced teachers and headteachers, going back to 2010.

The DfE has requested a substantial increase in pay for newly qualified state school teachers, from around £25,000 to £30,000 in 2024. The School Teachers Review Body (STRB) will review the suggestions, first promised as part of the Conservative party’s manifesto in 2019.

To raise funds, the IFS has revealed teachers with more than five years classroom experience or in senior roles will experience a significantly lower pay increase. In fact because of inflation, those teachers will instead face a real-terms pay cut of five per cent over the next two years.

Research fellow at the IFS, Luke Sibietam, said: “Smaller pay rises of two per cent to three per cent per year for most other teachers are likely to represent real-terms cuts and would follow on from more than a decade of real-terms pay cuts. There is also a risk that the highly unstable geopolitical and economic situation pushes inflation higher still.”

The government’s proposals officially work out to a four per cent pay rise across the board, but the IFS claims that a higher average pay award of five per cent for teachers was affordable this year due to a rise in school funding from September.

“An increase in school funding of close to £4bn in 2022 means there is room for a higher pay award within planned school budgets. A higher award than that proposed by the government may carry fewer risks than a lower one,” Sibieta said.