Cuts to teachers’ pay have contributed to the ongoing teacher recruitment crisis that is threatening standards of education across the country, it is a vicious cycle that see’s no end. If the government continues with its current pay caps it means a 9.3 per cent pay cut in real terms by 2020. The government has said it will limit public sector pay awards to 1 per cent a year to 2019-20. This is in addition to the £3bn cuts schools will face by the end of the decade which will leave many at breaking point.

The TUC’s research charts this pay growth for a range of public sector jobs with given pay levels against the Office for Budget Responsibility’s latest inflation forecast. According to its analysis, if inflation continues in line with the OBR’s forecast, then a teacher’s salary of £32,831 in 2015-16 will only be worth £29,767 by 2020-21 in 2016 prices. This would represent a real terms pay cut of £3,064.  

According to the TUC public sector salaries are already £1,000 lower today than they were in 2010. Frances O’Grady, the TUC’s general secretary, said: “Everyone in the UK has bills to pay, and it’s only fair that wages should at least keep up with rising living costs. Workers in the public sector are already feeling the squeeze, and it seems like there’s worse to come.” She called for public employers to be given the freedom to negotiate with unions over pay in their sectors, rather than having to abide by a blanket national limit.

The TUC also said that pay review bodies needed to be reformed to be “genuinely independent” of government. Russell Hobby, general secretary of the NAHT heads union, said that teachers pay was “not keeping pace with other graduate professions”. The government must recognise that, unless they end the policy of real terms pay cuts, we will struggle to attract the best and brightest,” he said. High standards require great teachers. This is an investment in our future, not a short term budget cost, which is why the government’s plans to make schools find £3bn of savings by 2020 are so short-sighted." James Bowen, director of NAHT Edge, said: “Teaching is a very important and highly demanding job, and must be recognised with competitive pay compared to other graduate professions.”

“Teachers don’t do the job to ‘get rich’, but they deserve to be paid fairly for the vital role they play in the country’s future. If we allow pay to continue to fall in real terms and when compared to other graduate careers, we are storing up long-term problems that could damage the quality of education in England.”