Teachers could follow the resident doctors and strike next year unless Labor increases pay and close school funding gaps, the bosses of two major teaching unions have warned.
Matt Wrack, general secretary of the National Association of School Captains and the Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT), said The Independent that strike talks were “inevitable” at the union conference next April unless there was an improvement in wages and conditions. He claimed that cash-strapped schools were caught in a “vicious cycle” because teacher pay rises had to come out of existing school budgets, which were already stretched.
Mr Wrack warned members to “expect change” after Labor won the general election, but they are “not convinced that change is being delivered, either adequately or quickly enough”.
Meanwhile, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), warned that there is a “real possibility of industrial difficulties” next year, arguing that teachers may no longer tolerate the “weight of pressure” placed on them.
The latest School Workforce Census revealed that there were almost 3,000 fewer state primary and nursery school teachers in England in 2024, with one in five (19.4 per cent) primary and secondary school teachers leaving the profession within two years of qualifying. That figure rises to more than one in four (26.7 percent) after three years.
Teachers may no longer tolerate the ‘weight of pressure’ placed on them (Getty/iStock)
In May, the government accepted the independent School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) recommendation of a 4 per cent pay rise for the 2025-26 academic year – a recommendation which Mr Wrack described as “not useful” when real teacher earnings “have fallen over the last 15 years”.
“There were changes in the pensions that worsened the pensions. So the package that the teachers get is not what it was 15 years ago.
“It is [the STRB] It seems to us to suggest that we could have two or possibly three years of low pay rises, which may be below even the government’s measure of inflation, but certainly below how we assess inflation using the RPI, and that on top of that, those pay rises will not be adequately funded”, he said.
Calling this a “vicious cycle”, he explained: “So we have a low wage increase, but if we have a slightly higher wage increase, this will further exacerbate the crisis in schools.”
Asked if England will see a teacher strike next year, the union boss said: “I think the teachers in our union, without a doubt, until our conference next April, it is inevitable that there will be a discussion about industrial action. I think at least it will come up as an option for people to consider.”
The warning comes after resident doctors launched a five-day strike, between 17 and 22 December, as they continued their fight with the government over training and pay.
While Mr Wrack, a former TUC president and head of the Fire Brigades Union, acknowledged there had been “some pay cuts”, he said the government had failed to resolve “the pressures” on teachers, such as overwork and a recruitment and retention crisis, which he said was caused by long-term underinvestment.
Mr Whiteman agreed there was a “real possibility” of industrial difficulties next year.
He said: “Whether that is a break or another industrial action, I don’t know, but I think that what will come to his head is the whole package of difficulties.
“I don’t think it’s just going to be about pay, I think it’s going to be about the workload and the working hours and just the intensity and the danger of the work.”
While he claimed that the government has “huge ambition for education”, he does not believe that the ambition has yet been supported with “the right resources”.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT, believes there is a ‘real possibility’ of industrial difficulties next year (PA Archive)
Mr Whiteman insisted the warnings of possible industrial action were not “sabre-proof” but said NAHT officials were “feeling the brunt of the pressure on behalf of our members”.
“They have carried that burden for a long, long time, I don’t think they will be able to tolerate it for much longer.”
Meanwhile, Teach First CEO James Toop has called for “cross-government prioritization of teacher pay” after a survey published earlier this year showed one in 10 teachers could leave the profession in the next two years.
While acknowledging that the Department for Education is “in a really tough place”, he said The Independent that ministers need to establish a “more comprehensive strategy” to recruit teachers.
He said: “We need to really focus on raising the status of teaching again. From our perspective, it’s an amazing job. It’s super challenging … But when you compare the starting salaries with law and accounting, the starting salaries of teachers are much lower.”
Setting out the scale of the problem facing schools, Aidan Sadgrove, CEO of the Brigshaw Learning Partnership, a multi-academy trust which oversees seven schools in East Leeds, warned that the schools it runs are facing a huge lack of funding.
“We’ve seen a 0.5 percent increase in our funding. There’s inflation running at 2.6 percent … Quite a lot of unfunded costs basically left us probably hundreds of thousands of pounds short, if not tens of thousands high. And we’re only seven schools, right? We’re a smaller trust.”
Matilda Browne, co-head of Reach Academy Feltham and Reach Academy Hanworth Park, outside London, warned that the “pressure on the system” means that some students risk “falling through the cracks”.
She said: “In this rather stretched system, some of our families can interact with the school, and they can have appointments with health and social care, or with SEND – and because the whole system is stretched, it feels really disjointed, and that can mean that some families and some children in particular fall through the cracks.”
Paul Nowak, general secretary of the TUC, wants to see strategic discussions with the government (PA Archive)
Ms Browne said many schools have taken the issue of lack of funding into their own hands, saying they “don’t feel we can wait for the government” to provide desperately needed support.
“I have children in my school now who need many different things”, she said The Independentthey explain that they work around a lack of resources by collaborating with other schools to capitalize on the expertise provided by different teachers.
Meanwhile, the general secretary of the TUC Paul Nowak warned that the Labor government faces some tough decisions next year, not only from the public sector but also from the private sector, due to wage stagnation over 14 years.
He said The Independent: “I think the government needs to recognize that there is a problem, and it’s not just a problem in the public sector. It’s across the public and private sector. We’ve had 14 years of effective wage stagnation under the Tories. If wages had grown in those 14 years on their normal pre-2008 trend, the average worker would be £300 a week better off.”
He warned: “The pay must be part of the solution next year. I think it is not only about the pay. I think it is a much more strategic discussion with the unions about the pay, but about the amount of work, about the balance between work and private life, about the use of new technology.
“If I had a criticism of what the government has done so far in health and in other parts of other key parts of our public services, it is that even where the investment has come, often those big and strategic conversations have not yet taken place.”
A spokesman for the Department for Education said: “Through our Plan for Change, we are restoring teaching to the highly valued profession it should be. Our recent proposals mean that teachers’ pay will increase by almost 17 per cent across this parliament, which means a significant increase in real terms over five years.
“Despite very challenging public spending choices, mainstream school funding will rise again next year, reaching almost £51 billion, to help every child achieve and succeed.
“We’re helping schools get the best value for money in areas such as energy, recruitment and banking, so every penny is invested in providing opportunities for young people.”