Teacher pay rise

The government’s response to the school teachers’ review body (STRB) report for 2026 will see teachers’ pay increase by 6.5% over the next 2 years, after the Education Secretary accepted the STRB’s pay recommendations in full. In summary:

• Teachers’ pay will increase by 3.5% from September 2026
• Some staff on the unqualified pay scale will receive larger rises to lift the bottom of the scale by 5%
• There will be a further 3% pay rise from September 2027 for all teachers
• Schools will be expected to fund around a third of teacher and support staff awards from existing budgets.

Whilst additional government funding of £1.8 billion will be provided to schools over 2 years, the DfE said that schools, like the rest of the public sector, will need to play their part and find the first 1% of each pay award “through continued efforts to maximise value from their budgets”.

Whether the announcement will be enough to hold off strike action remains to be seen.  An NEU spokesperson is reported as saying that the union was “considering all options” after it previously said it would formally ballot for strike action in October if the government did not provide a fully funded pay offer that exceeds inflation, with “sufficient funding for schools to prevent redundancies and rises in workload”.