Data Collection
The initial teacher training (ITT) census is collected annually and counts trainees registered on a course on the second Wednesday in October. The collection generally remains open until the first week of November to allow providers time to input and check their records.
Data has been collected from Register Trainee Teachers since ITT Census 2022/23, following a move from the Database of Trainee Teachers and Providers (DTTP). Register is a live system on which providers can change their entries throughout the year. This statistical release includes both the revised data for the previous training year, for which provisional data were published last year, and provisional data for the latest training year. The revisions reflect any changes made by providers between the initial publication and the end of the training year.
Coverage
The initial teacher training census covers first year initial teacher trainees in England. The statistical release includes provisional figures for the training year of the statistical release, and revises figures for the previous training year.
Confidentiality
The Code of Practice for Official Statistics requires that reasonable steps should be taken to ensure that all published or disseminated statistics produced by the Department for Education protects confidentiality.
To do this small numbers are suppressed for sensitive characteristics and for very small providers.
This suppression approach is consistent with the Department’s statistical policy (opens in new tab). Symbols used to identify this approach in published tables are as follows:
| Symbol | Description |
|---|---|
| 0 | Zero |
| C | Small number suppressed to preserve confidentiality |
| z | Not applicable |
| x | Not available |
Quality assurance
Data for the ITT census were completed, reviewed and signed-off by providers. The data collection and publication team within DfE carried out additional quality checks and data validations throughout the data entry process. After the data was extracted, the production team undertook a further quality assurance process to recode and correct some of the data.
Please see the year specific methodology section of the statistical release, for more details.
Trainees included in this release
We apply filters to ensure we capture only valid trainees:
- Trainees were in their first year
- Trainee records were signed off and not marked as draft
- Trainees were on a course on or before second Wednesday of October
- Trainees were on a course that started after 1 August of the published training year
- Trainees were on a course that leads to Qualified Teacher Status (QTS)
- Trainees were not excluded (see below)
Trainees on the Future Teaching Scholars programme in this dataset are included with trainees on a School Direct route.
Trainees excluded from this release
Trainees on a course that leads towards international qualified teacher status (iQTS) are not included in this release.
Some trainees are excluded from mainstream ITT statistics, but are included in a separate section of this publication or an annex of the ITT performance profiles statistical release (opens in new tab):
- Early years ITT – The main tables in this publication focus on trainees working towards QTS, and so trainees working towards early years teacher status (EYTS) are not included because they are not eligible for QTS. Figures on early years ITT are reported in a separate section of the release.
Assessment Only candidates – Assessment Only is for experienced teachers with a degree and those with a teaching qualification from different countries, who have not been awarded qualified teacher status (QTS) in England. It allows teachers to do the necessary assessment and skills tests to qualify for QTS. These individuals are deemed to be already in the workforce and therefore do not count towards the postgraduate ITT targets. Figures for AO trainees have been published as an annex to the initial teacher training (ITT) performance profiles since its 2016/17 publication.
Teacher Supply Model & Teacher Workforce Model
The Teacher Supply Model (TSM) was used by DfE to estimate the number of postgraduate trainee teachers needed to provide sufficient numbers of qualified teachers for state-funded schools in England, up to and including the 2020/21 training year (ITT2020). The last annual iteration of the TSM estimated the number of postgraduate ITT entrants needed for ITT courses starting in England in the autumn of 2020.
More information can be found within the 2020/21 Teacher Supply Model and accompanying user guide (opens in new tab).
In 2020, the TSM was replaced by the Teacher Workforce Model (TWM). The TWM considers both recruitment and retention alongside estimates of teacher demand, and, since the 2021/22 training year (ITT2021), analysis from the model is used by DfE to set postgraduate ITT targets.
Self-funded trainees
As of 2025/26, these statistics now include “self-funded” trainees, who had been excluded from historical releases of these statistics. These are trainees that the provider has indicated are not eligible for UK financial support and, for historical data, where they do not have a DfE allocated place. Trainees identified as self-funded may include overseas trainees not entitled to UK financial support; trainees on the School Direct salaried or PGTA routes undertaking a non-DfE-funded subject and/or employed at an independent school; or in situations when a School Direct salaried or PGTA trainee is undertaking a subject that would not normally be funded by DfE, but the provider is funding the trainee themselves.
These self-funded trainees were historically excluded from ITT official statistics and were thought to be a small group of trainees. However, in recent years the numbers of these trainees have been growing, with 1,286 trainees identified as self-funded in the 2023/24 data, and 1,114 in the 2024/25 data. We have therefore moved to including them to improve the coverage of these statistics.
To enable comparison between years in terms of trainee numbers, previous years’ data from academic year 2019/20 onwards has been revised to include these trainees. Therefore total trainee counts published here do not match previous publications. Amending historical data prior to 2019/20 was not possible due to changes in data sources. Therefore, care should be taken when comparing numbers of trainees from before 2019/20.
Following the decision to include self-funded trainees in statistics to improve coverage, the methodology of the TWM was changed so that targets from 2025/26 onward now include them directly within the PGITT target.
However, self-funded trainees continue to be excluded from percentage performance against pre-2025/26 PGITT targets. Excluding them ensures a fairer comparison between pre- and post-2025/26 performance statistics.