This section provides information on the number and percentage of early career teachers who participated in the provider-led and school-led ECF-based induction since the national rollout of ECF in September 2021.
Schools can choose how they want to deliver ECF-based induction. They can use a provider-led approach whereby a DfE funded training provider and a delivery partner provide ECF-based training directly to ECTs and train mentors to support ECTs. The training programmes designed by these lead providers are accredited by DfE and quality assured by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) (opens in a new tab). Alternatively, schools can use freely available DfE accredited materials to deliver their own induction programme or design and deliver their own induction programme based on the ECF (school-led approach).
Over the past four academic years, there has been a decline in the number of ECTs starting ECF-based induction, reducing to 22,536 in the latest year from 28,887 in 2021/22. Since 2021/22 a total of 104,277 ECTs have started ECF-based induction, the share of ECTs who started a provider-led ECF-based induction has remained stable over this period, remaining between 94.3% and 95.1%.
ECF teaching workforce coverage
In 2024/25, 80,910 teachers in the school workforce census (SWC) had started or completed an ECF-based induction, representing 15.8% of the state school teaching workforce. This includes 77,342 provider-led inductions (15.1% of teachers) and 3,568 school-led inductions (0.7% of teachers).