Falling value of teachers’ salaries contrasts with rises in comparable OECD countries as pressure grows to lift public sector pay cap

Teachers’ salaries in England have dropped by more than a tenth in the last decade while their earnings have risen in comparable countries, according to an influential international study.

The survey by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows that teachers’ salaries in England were worth 12% less in 2015 than in 2005 and 6% less in Scotland.

This contrasts sharply with trends elsewhere in OECD countries, where teachers’ salaries have gone up in real terms by an average of 10% at pre-primary level and 6% at primary, with the rate of growth slightly slower – but still up – at secondary.

The study, published on Tuesday, comes as pressure grows on the government to lift the 1% public sector pay cap that is holding down teachers’ salaries and contributing to a crisis in teacher recruitment and retention, according to unions.

Union leaders attending the TUC conference on Monday demanded a 5% pay increase for all public sector workers, threatening coordinated strike action against the cap. According to the NASUWT teachers’ union, the average pay award for teachers last year was 0.6%.

Amid growing expectation that the cap is about to be lifted for police and prison officers, representatives of 13 unions called for more money to be found to retain and reward teachers, as well as nurses, council staff and civil servants.

In a separate report on Tuesday, the government’s spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, said secondary schools in England were struggling to recruit enough teachers to keep up with retiring staff and rising pupil numbers. Tens of thousands of teachers left England’s schools before reaching retirement age last year, and headteachers are finding it difficult to fill posts with good quality candidates.

The decreasing value of teachers’ salaries in England is revealed in the OECD’s annual Education at a Glance survey, which provides a picture of the state of education around the world, comparing data in 35 OECD countries, plus a number of partner countries.

The broad trend shows the impact of the economic downturn in 2008, with pay generally frozen or cut between 2009 and 2013, before starting to increase again, but England’s teachers appear to be falling behind.

The report notes: “Among the half of the OECD countries with available data on statutory salaries of teachers with typical qualifications for 2000 and 2015 (and no break in the time series), teachers’ salaries increased overall in real terms in most of these countries during this period.” England was a notable exception, the report said.

“On average across OECD countries and economies with available data for 2005 and 2015 reference years, salaries increased by 6% at primary level, 6% at lower secondary level and 4% at upper secondary level.”

The increase exceeded 20% in Poland at pre-primary, primary and secondary levels, as a result of a 2007 government programme that aimed to boost teachers’ salaries and to improve the quality of education by providing financial incentives to attract high-quality teachers.

There were also significant increases in Israel, Latvia, Luxembourg, Norway and Turkey, while teachers’ salaries decreased in Portugal and also in Greece, where they went down 28% in value. In England and Scotland, as in most OECD countries, teachers are paid less on average than other university-educated workers.

The OECD report also shows that the UK spends the highest proportion of GDP on primary to tertiary educational institutions (6.6% compared with the OECD average of 5.2%) , while an above-average share of funding comes from private sources rather than public spending.

While the UK allocates a larger proportion of public spending to education overall than the OECD average, at university level, only 28% of expenditure comes from public funding because students pay their own tuition fees, compared with the OECD average of 70%. The OECD survey also notes that tuition fees in England are among the highest among countries able to provide data.