How many teachers are there in England?

The Department for Education's "School workforce in England" statistics, published each June, count teachers and support staff in state-funded schools as headcount and full-time equivalents, with figures on vacancies, pay, leavers and joiners.

Teacher recruitment against targets is in the separate initial teacher training census. Claims about "more teachers" should be set against pupil numbers, which the same service publishes.

Official sources: School workforce in England

The latest figure

The newest value is at Department for Education (DfE). More on it: Pupils in schools in England.

When is the next figure out?

Annual, usually early June, from the January school census (4 June 2026 for 2025/26). The DfE public statistics API needs a POST query with the national 'Total' filter options; it is not an ONS time series, so the site cannot read it automatically

Every official release due in the next two weeks is on the release calendar.

Terms used in this answer

• Full-time equivalent (FTE) and headcount
  FTE converts part-time posts into full-time units, so two half-time staff count as one FTE. Headcount counts each person once regardless of hours.
• Headcount
  A count of individual people, each counted once regardless of how many hours they work or how many posts they hold.
• Administrative data
  Information collected by organisations while running a service, such as tax records, benefit claims or hospital activity, and then used to produce statistics.
• Forecast and projection
  A forecast is a best estimate of what will happen. A projection shows what would happen if stated assumptions hold, without claiming they will.

Where the figures come from

• Higher education and student finance statistics (HESA, Student Loans Company, Office for Students and DfE)
  Official figures on UK student numbers, international students, student loan debt, graduate earnings, university finances and apprenticeships.
• Explore education statistics (Department for Education)
  How to use DfE's Explore Education Statistics for pupil numbers, free school meals, teachers, GCSE and SATs results, exclusions, attendance and the API.

Related questions

• How many pupils are in schools in England?
• Where can I find official GCSE results statistics?
• How many children get free school meals?

This answer says where the official figures are published and how they are defined. It gives no verdict on any claim. To report an error, send a correction request. More questions about schools and education: all Schools and education questions.