An increased bursary of £30,000 and a higher career-change bonus would persuade more people to switch to teaching, a survey shows.
One in five (22 per cent) of people working in other sectors in the UK have applied, or considered applying, to the teaching profession, according to the YouGov poll.
In the survey, commissioned by Now Teach, more than a quarter (26 per cent) of those who said they had applied for teaching or considered it said this was fuelled by wanting to “give something back”.
The Now Teach poll asked over 1,800 adults working in sectors other than teaching what would make a change in career to teaching more attractive.
Nearly a quarter (23 per cent) said a bursary of £30,000 and more than a fifth (21 per cent) said a higher starting salary than recent graduates to reflect additional experience.
Meanwhile, 15 per cent of those who had considered applying or applied to train as a teacher said that salary and benefits were a factor in their decision to consider the profession as a new career.
But over a quarter (27 per cent) said their interest in the sector was fuelled by wanting personal and professional development, while only just over one in 10 (13 per cent) said it was driven by flexible-working options.
Graihagh Crawshaw-Sadler, chief executive at Now Teach, said the findings showed that the “public is intensely interested in the profession” despite teaching being “perceived as a stressful career”.
She added that the poll also showed that the sector needs to ”offer different things to different people to claw back years of missed recruitment targets”.
And Rob Fryer, director of recruitment at Now Teach, said it was important for the sector to do a “bit more exploration of what those things may be”.
Teacher recruitment difficulties
The government is currently offering a number of bursaries - up to £28,000 - in 2024-2025 for those training to teach in different subjects.
The recruitment of secondary teacher trainees for this year fell short of the government target by 50 per cent, according to data published last year.
Meanwhile, the number of state school teachers leaving the profession hit its highest rate in four years in the academic year 2021-22, with one in 10 (43,997) recorded as having quit the classroom.
Last year Tes revealed that the Department for Education was set to refresh its 2019 recruitment and retention strategy for a post-Covid world.
And Tes revealed last week that the government is looking at how it can increase schools’ recruitment of teachers from overseas to plug staffing gaps amid a deepening teacher supply crisis.
