Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many computing teachers (a) left teaching and (b) were recruited in (i) 2018, (ii) 2019, (iii) 2021 and (iv) 2022.

The Department has invested over £100 million to support the quality of computing teaching through the creation of the National Centre for Computing Education. This has provided a computing hub network and high quality training and resources for pre and in service teachers.

Information on the school workforce, including the number of subject teachers in state funded secondary schools and the overall number of teachers joining and leaving the state funded sector, is published in the ‘School Workforce in England’ statistical publication, available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.

As at November 2022, the latest data available, there were 7,529 full time equivalent (FTE) teachers teaching computer science, and 6,179 FTE teachers teaching information, computing and technology (ICT) in state funded secondary schools. It is important to note that it is possible for teachers to teach both subjects, therefore, some may be counted in both of these figures.

FTE teachers of computer science and ICT¹ in statefunded secondary schools
2018/19 to 2021/22²

Source: School Workforce Census, published at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/8bcbf8de-57df-4ae4-8a65-08db7860a436.

1: Teachers were counted once against each subject. Therefore, teachers may be counted against both computer science and ICT

2: Computer science was introduced as a new code from 2017/18 to reflect reformed GCSEs.

The requested figures for leavers and joiners by subject taught are not available.

47,954 teachers joined the state funded school sector for 2022/23, up by 3,943 since last year.

43,997 teachers left the state funded sector in 2021/22, up by 7,818 since last year.

Leavers are defined as qualified teachers leaving the state funded sector in England, for example due to a change of career or joining other UK education sectors, and those leaving on career breaks such as maternity leave or secondments outside of the school sector. Some of these teachers may later rejoin a state funded school in England.

Almost 9 in 10 (87.2%) teachers who qualified in 2021 are still teaching one year after qualification. Almost 8 in 10 (76.1%) teachers who qualified three years ago are still teaching, and almost 7 in 10 (68.7%) teachers who qualified five years ago are still teaching.

It is the Department’s priority to make sure that teachers not only stay in the profession, but thrive in it. The Department has taken action to improve teacher and leader workload, working with the profession to understand and address longstanding issues around marking, planning and data management. The Department continues to work proactively with the sector to understand the drivers behind workload and wellbeing issues and improve our policies and interventions.

The Department is supporting schools to act and remove unhelpful practice that creates unnecessary workload. The Department School Workload Reduction Toolkit, developed alongside headteachers, is a helpful resource for schools to review and reduce workload.

The Department also worked in partnership with the education sector and mental health experts to create the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter. The Department is encouraging schools to sign up to as a shared commitment to promote staff wellbeing. So far, 2,600 schools have signed up to the Charter.