Teachers across the UK are among the lowest paid in Europe, according to a study that has looked into remuneration across the continent as a whole. 

Analysis by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that England and Scotland fall behind some of the best paid teachers in the continent, including the likes of Ireland and Portugal. 

OECD director of education and skills Andreas Schleicher said that overall, the rate of pay that teachers are getting across the country has 'gone backwards' in real terms over the past few years. 

"Pretty much for the first time in history, the last ten years have not been so great for teachers in terms of getting more pay," he said. 

Addressing the data in the report, he said this was an anomaly in the UK. Across the rest of Europe, the last ten years has seen a rise in real term wages for teachers. At the moment, the average teacher in the UK in the OECD's findings was paid £29,807 as a starting wage. 

"What the UK does well in our judgement, it does have quite flexible pay scales and it does have a lot of incentives," he said. 

"If you add all that up, actually teachers are quite wealthy – relative to their colleagues (in other countries) but not relative to workers with similar qualifications."

Mr Schleicher said that getting it right when it comes to offering wages to teachers was key to attracting more people into the industry. It's been reported over the last few months that there is a shortage of high-quality graduates going into teacher training, and this is not going to improve if they do not feel they are getting the right pay for their work.

It was also discovered by the OECD that teachers in the UK have a harder job to carry out than in most countries, as they have a higher average class size, and as a result more pupils to deal with.