Executive Summary

computing teacher numbers have reduced by 28 % since 2010, from a peak of 11,748 in 2010/11 to 8,435in 2022/23. Higher response rates in later workforce surveys suggest that the decline might be steeper than the one described here.
accompanying this decrease in overall numbers there has been a slight decrease in the percentage of computing teachers who are female, dropping from 43 % to 41 % over the same period.
ethnically minority staff make up 26 % of computing staff and teach 31 % of lessons.
timetabled hours of computing have decreased substantially with the worst affected area being provision that decreased by 43 % between 2010 and 2022.
the decline in hours of taught KS3 has been noted previously (Kemp and Berry 2019), however, the majority of this decline appears to be in Y9 provision, presumably with the decrease in the number of three year GCSEs and equivalent qualifications.
18 % of schools weren’t offering any KS3 provision during the census week 2022
recent training of 7,800 teachers provided by the NCCE to deliver GCSE computer science lessons (Anderson 2023) doesn’t appear to have led to an increase in hours taught or number of teachers in the classroom, with the total number of key stage 4 teachers below the number the NCCE has trained. However, it is possible that this intervention stopped a more substantial decline in the provision of computing in schools and these teachers might be working at key stages 3 and 5.
BAME teachers have good representation among computing teachers, making up 26 % of computing staff and teaching 31 % of lessons. This is above the average of all school teachers (DfE 2019) and higher than their representation in the general population.
Many computing teachers teach computing along side other subjects, suggesting a lack of specialists in the classroom. The number of dedicated computing teachers has declined from 61 % in 2010 to 56 % of all computing teachers.

References

Anderson, Michael. 2023. “Boost for Computing as the Department for Education Renews Funding.” York, England: STEM Learning. https://www.stem.org.uk/all-news/boost-for-computing-as-the-department-for-education-renews-funding.

DfE. 2019. “Statistics: School Workforce.” https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-school-workforce.

Kemp, Peter Edward Joseph, and Miles G Berry. 2019. “The Roehampton Annual Computing Education Report.” London, England: University of Roehampton. https://www.bcs.org/more/bcs-academy-of-computing/the-roehampton-annual-computing-education-report.