Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department holds on the (a) number and (b) proportion of school support staff in state-funded schools in England who are employed on (i) zero-hour and (ii) term time-only contracts.

Information on the school workforce is published in the ‘School Workforce in England’ statistical publication here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.

The school workforce census does not collect figures on zero-hour contracts and does not directly identify term time-only contracts. In November 2023, the latest information available, there were 71,000 school support staff contracts for between 37 and 40 weeks, the likely duration of term time-only contracts, in state-funded schools in England. This equates to 13% of support staff contracts where a duration was reported.

Support staff may have more than one contract, so individuals may be counted more than once.