Further education college workforce using teacher pension data
Analysis focusing on the further education college workforce in England using teachers’ pensions scheme data. Covers the years 2002/03 to 2024/25.
- Published
Headline facts and figures
Headcount of the statutory further education workforce:
57,000
up 2.0% on academic year 23/24
Scope of the workforce
Alongside teachers, TPS includes some staff which may be referred to as managers or leaders in other publications.
Median FTE salary at GFECs:
£38,800
up 3.8% on academic year 23/24
What is a GFEC?
General Further Education College (including tertiary, specialist and designated institutions).
Median FTE salary at SFCs:
£48,800
up 3.5% on academic year 23/24
What is an SFC?
Sixth Form College.
Headcount of new teachers:
7,500
up 2.8% on academic year 23/24
Who is a new teacher?
A teacher with no previous record working within the statutory FE sector.
Teachers retained after 5 years of joining:
42.1%
of those who started working in academic year 19/20
What is retention?
Of those teachers who joined statutory FE in 19/20, how many are seen still in service in statutory FE in 24/25.
Attrition rate:
14.7%
down 1.9 ppts on academic year 22/23
What is attrition?
Of teachers working in a given year, how many are not observed working in the following year.
This is a separate and complementary publication to the Further Education Workforce publication. Figures may differ due to different data sources. More information is available in the methodology section.
Workforce size
Teachers' Pensions Scheme data suggests a headcount of approximately 57,000 teachers in the statutory FE sector in 2024/25, up from 55,900 in 2023/24 (a 2.0% increase).
New entrants make up 13.1% of the workforce, whilst 82.7% continue from the previous year and 4.2% return after a break of 1 year or more. These proportions are very similar those seen in 2022/23 and 2023/24.
The one-year retention rate for teachers in 2023/24 was 75.5%, up from 72.3% in 2022/23.
Of those working in 2023/24, 14.7% were not in service the following year. This is the lowest attrition rate since 2019/20 (14.5%), and prior to that since 2008/09 (13.3%).
Pay
Median teacher pay is higher in sixth form colleges (SFC) than General Further Education Colleges (GFEC). This gap persists throughout the time series since at least 2002/03. Teachers at GFECs on average earn a full-time equivalent (FTE) salary of £38,800 (a 3.8% increase relative to 2023/24), whilst those at SFCs on average earn an FTE salary of £48,800 (a 3.5% increase relative to 2023/24).
Summary
This release focuses on teachers in statutory further education (FE) colleges in England - General FE Colleges (including Tertiary, Specialist and Designated institutions) and Sixth Form Colleges - based on Teachers’ Pensions Scheme (TPS) management information. It covers up to the 2024/25 academic year (1 August 2024 to 31 July 2025).
All numbers in this publication refer to headcount. Headcount and pay are calculated as at 1st December each year.
Academy-converted SFCs are out of scope of statutory FE once conversion takes effect, with the exception of retention and attrition measures to present a smoother time series. Further information is available in the methodology.
This is a separate and complementary publication to the Further Education Workforce publication. Figures may differ due to different data sources. More information is available in the methodology section.
To improve consistency and comparability across the sectors, changes have been made in this release from the previous 2021 publication:
- Snapshot for calculating headcount and pay moved from August to December to more accurately capture information for the respective academic year.
- Leaver definition adjusted to “not working in the statutory FE sector the following year” (previously “left and never returned to the statutory FE sector”).
- Retention and attrition measures adjusted to count a teacher who joined statutory FE as remaining in service if they are later employed at an academy converter.
- Academy converters are now distinctly classified; SFC converters are excluded from statutory FE post‑conversion.
- Coverage and data cleaning improvements.
Headcount
Teachers' Pensions Scheme (TPS) suggests there were 57,000 teachers working in the statutory further education sector in the 2024/25 academic year, a 2.0% increase from 55,900 in 2023/24.
The majority (91.1%) were employed at a General Further Education College (GFEC). This has been the case throughout the time series since 2002/03.
In 2024/25 there were 52,000 teachers in GFECs, an increase of 3.2% from the previous year. In the same year, there were 5,100 teachers in SFCs, a decrease of 9.4% from the previous year. This decrease in headcount in SFCs can be partially attributed to some providers becoming academy converters and falling out of scope, rather than teachers leaving their education provider.
There were 7,500 new teachers in the statutory FE sector in 2024/25, an increase of 2.8% on the previous year 2023/24, and making up 13.1% of the workforce that year.
Of those 7,500, 7,000 were employed by a GFEC, making up 13.4% of their teachers. SFCs employed 500 new teachers, representing a smaller share of their workforce at 9.8%.
Since 2002/03, new teachers have always made up a greater share of the workforce in GFECs compared to SFCs.
There were 2,400 teachers in the statutory FE sector who returned to the sector after a gap of a year or more, making up 4.2% of the workforce. The proportion of returning teachers showed an increasing trend from 2005/06 to 2018/19, followed by a decreasing trend.
Within GFECs, 4.3% of the workforce had taken a gap of a year or more and returned to the sector, compared to 3.2% of SFCs. GFECs have historically had a greater share of teachers taking a gap in service than SFCs since 2008/09.
The remainder of teachers (those continuing service from the previous year) made up 82.7% of the statutory FE workforce.
Pay
Median salaries
In 2024/25, teachers working at GFECs earned a median FTE salary of £38,800 (a nominal increase of 3.8% on the previous year), whereas those at SFCs earned £48,800 (a nominal increase of 3.5% on the previous year). The gap between the two provider types widened in the latest year by £200.
From at least 2002/03, median teacher salary has been higher at SFCs than at GFECs. The gap between the two has widened over the span of the time series.
In 2024/25, the three regions with the highest median salary for teachers in statutory FE were:
- London: £44,500
- West Midlands: £41,100
- North West: £39,900
Providers in London have historically led with the highest median FTE salary. The gap between the median FTE salary in London and the region with the next highest salary has existed throughout the data series.
The South West has had the lowest median pay since the time series begins in 2002/03, with the exception of Yorkshire and the Humber in 2023/24.
The largest gap between the lowest paying region and second-lowest was in 2011/12, where median pay in the South West was £27,400 compared to £31,100 in the East Midlands. This gap has narrowed in more recent years.
Pay progression
In 2024/25, teachers two or three years into their career saw the biggest percentage increase in salary on their previous year. The observed year on year increase shows a downward trend the more years a teacher has worked.
Teachers at SFCs have historically had a higher salary increase after 1 year working in FE than those at GFECs. Teachers who joined the FE sector in 2023/24 earned on average an 11.2% higher salary in their next year at an SFC, compared to a 6.9% higher salary at a GFEC. In subsequent years, salary increases are no longer consistently higher at SFCs, showing greater variation year by year.
Origin and retention
Origin of new teachers
In 2024/25, 7,500 teachers joined the statutory FE sector for the first time. Of these, 11.7% were in a teaching role elsewhere in the education sector in the previous year, and 0.2% were in a teaching role at an academy converter. The remaining 88.0% had no teaching records the previous year (percentages do not sum to 100 due to rounding).
The proportion of new teachers in statutory FE with a teaching role the previous year elsewhere in education has fluctuated over the time series, reaching its lowest point in 2006/07 (7.3%) and its highest point in 2015/16 (13.7%)
New teacher retention
First, second and third year retention rates in 2024/25 for the most recent cohorts of new teachers increased on the previous year 2023/24:
- 75.5% of teachers who started service in 2023/24 were still in service one year later; an increase of 3.2 percentage points on those who started in 2022/23.
- 61.2% of teachers who started service in 2022/23 were still in service two years later; an increase of 2.3 percentage points on those who started in 2021/22.
- 52.0% of teachers who started service in 2021/22 were still in service three years later; an increase of 1.3 percentage points on those who started in 2020/21.
Retention rates for those in their fourth year (44.9%) decreased on the previous year by 2.0 percentage points. Retention rates for teachers in later years showed a variation in trend when compared to the previous year.
GFECs had a higher first year retention rate of teachers who started in 2023/24 (75.3%) than SFCs (73.5%). Across the majority of new teacher cohorts since 2003/04 however, SFCs have had the higher first year retention rate, with the exception of new teachers from 2004/05 and 2018/19. Of teachers who started in 2022/23, 76.6% were retained in SFCs the following year compared to 71.3% in GFECs.
Attrition and destination
Teacher attrition
Of the teaching workforce in 2023/24, 14.7% had left the sector the following year. This is a decrease in attrition rate from the previous year of 1.9 percentage points (16.6%). This latest attrition rate is the lowest since 2019/20, and before that since 2008/09.
The attrition rate was higher in GFECs (14.9%) than in SFCs (12.5%), a relationship which has persisted throughout the time series. The 2.4 percentage point difference in the most recent year is the lowest since at least 2002/03 when the time series began.
Destination of leaving teachers
Of those teaching in statutory FE in 2023/24, 8.7% of those who left the following year were seen to be working elsewhere in the education sector. This is a decrease of 2.0 percentage points on the previous cohort working in 2022/23.
Contact us
If you have a specific enquiry about Further education college workforce using teacher pension data statistics and data:
Further Education Workforce Team
Email: FurtherEducation.WORKFORCE@education.gov.ukContact name: João Morais
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