The number of people wanting to go into teaching has fallen by 4 per cent compared to this time last year.

The data published today by admissions body Ucas shows that by 16 July this year, 40,750 people had applied for teacher training compared to 42,660 at the same time last year.

The figure is an improvement on the situation last month, when teacher training applications were down year-on-year by 7 per cent.

But today’s figures show that the drop in some subjects is much larger.

The statistics show that the number of people applying to train as physics teachers from September 2018 has dropped 20 per cent from this time last year.

There has been a drop of 13 per cent in the number of people applying to be maths teachers.

The number of people wanting to train as chemistry teachers is down by 10 per cent.

The figures come after DfE statistics released today show that almost 1 in 8 physics trainees who finished their training in summer 2017 and gained QTS, were not teaching six months later.

The statistics revealed that just 83 per cent of physics postgraduate trainees obtained QTS in 2016-17 compared to 91 per cent of all secondary postgraduate teacher trainees.

They also revealed that 88 per cent of those physics trainees who gained QTS were teaching six months later, compared to 94 per cent of all secondary postgraduate teacher trainees.