Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate his Department has made of the proportion of the early years workforce which is aged 23 to 24 years old.

The Survey of Childcare and Early Years Providers (2019) collected data on ages of the early years workforce. This can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/childcare-and-early-years-providers-survey-2019.

Data for early years staff aged 23 to 24 is not available because the data is banded into age groups. However, the unpublished data shows that 4% of staff working in school-based early years settings, 17% of staff working in group-based settings, and 1% of childminders were aged between 21 to 24 years old in 2019.