Secondary school job vacancies have soared to their highest levels for at least six years and show “no sign of slowing”, experts are warning.

The number of jobs advertised between last September and the end of February was 25 per cent higher than the same period in the pre-pandemic part of the 2019-20 academic year, according to SchoolDash data analysed by Tes.

In fact, the first 25 weeks of the academic year have seen the highest number of secondary vacancies advertised on school websites since SchoolDash started monitoring the figures in 2017.

So far in 2022-23, 20,351 secondary vacancies have been recorded by the service, compared with 16,346 in the same period three years ago, and 15,069 in 2017-18.

This suggests that ”a combination of restive teachers and tight labour markets are making it harder than ever for schools to recruit”, according to Dr Timo Hannay, founding managing director of School Dash.

He said that the effect of the sharp rise in vacancies since last year has meant a “reverse...of the shortfall in adverts seen during two years of pandemic-induced disruption, and we haven’t yet reached recruitment high season”.

After the “buoyant market” in 2019, followed by a crash between 2020 and 2021 - and the “huge rebound in 2022-23” - the “net effect is 2,878 more ads than if things had just carried on as in 2017-2018”, he added.

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The figures come as leaders are sounding strong warnings about the recruitment challenges they are facing.

Pepe Di’Iasio, the headteacher of Wales High School in Rotherham, said he feared schools were “heading for a situation akin to ‘panic buying’, with specialist teachers of shortage subjects being targeted and recruited by schools who fear if they don’t recruit early then the shelves will be bare”.

Mr Di’Iasio said that his school is looking to recruit its own trainees “despite us not having vacancies at the moment because we feel we may well have vacancies in the future”. 

He said “the whole country is seeing that teachers are on strike for pay and conditions” and “that won’t make the profession more attractive to those people who are considering it”.

And he thinks there “should be more motivation to resolve that industrial action right now...so that teachers do have better pay and conditions, and that does make us more attractive going forward”.

Mr Di’Iasio said: “Otherwise, we’re going to repeat the issues that we faced over the last 10 years.”

Education secretary Gillian Keegan yesterday repeated her call for the NEU teaching union to call off planned strike action, but the union is calling for a “serious” pay offer first.

Dr Hannay feared that the factors behind the current wave of teacher strikes will exacerbate recruitment problems.

“If teachers are so unhappy with their pay and conditions that they’re willing to strike, this doesn’t help in retaining them, let alone in attracting new teachers into the profession, so the problem
only gets worse,” he said.

Figures ‘spell disaster’ for schools facing biggest challenges

There are concerns that recruitment could hit schools in disadvantaged areas, with poorer Ofsted ratings or facing the biggest financial challenges, particularly hard.

Glyn Potts, headteacher of Newman Catholic College in Greater Manchester, told Tes that, like all schools, his college is “recruiting from a smaller pool, relying more heavily on those staff looking to move from less favourable conditions”. 

Mr Potts said that while this was the “right thing to serve” his pupils, it “spells disaster for the system as those schools in challenging circumstances will suffer more”. 

He added that the school has some vacancies that could be coming up and, as “we know we will struggle to recruit”, the school is having to look at making curriculum changes “to save advertising for subjects that we know we cannot staff”. 

Data published last week revealed applications to initial teacher training courses have fallen by up to 37 per cent year on year.

Today’s SchoolDash figures have been released ahead of a further analysis with the Gatsby Foundation and Teacher Tapp, due to be published in the summer.