| Year | Census URNs |
|---|---|
| 2010 | 2,472 |
| 2011 | 2,561 |
| 2012 | 2,651 |
| 2013 | 2,709 |
| 2014 | 2,743 |
| 2015 | 2,735 |
| 2016 | 2,761 |
| 2017 | 2,800 |
| 2018 | 2,847 |
| 2019 | 2,886 |
| 2022 | 2,775 |
| Private schools, sixth form colleges and further education providers are excluded from the calculation. | |
Methodology
The school workforce census provides a yearly snapshot of the staff in schools across England (DfE 2024). There are a few limitations to the data, which are discussed below. The data used in this report is from the Department for Education’s school workforce census, which is a statutory data collection that takes place in November each year. The data is collected from all state-funded schools in England, including academies and free schools. This data does not report on schools that are privately funded, non-maintained special schools, sixth form colleges and further education institutions. The data is collected at the individual level and includes information on teachers, teaching assistants, and other school staff, along with timetabling information and subjects taught.
This report focuses on teachers of key stages 3 (students aged 11-14), 4 (age 14-16) and 5 (age 16-18) between the years 2010 and 2022. Data for 2021 was suppressed by the DfE due to the pandemic. Data for 2020 is largely suppressed, but does exist where noted in graphs. The data is broken down by subject, including computing, and by the characteristics of the teachers:
- Gender is recorded as a binary variable,
FemaleandMale. - Where
Whiteis used, this refers to all teachers who self-declared as white, includingWhite British. - Where BAME is used, this combines all teachers who specified an ethnicity that did not map to
White British. - The workforce allows for a large number of codes to be used for ethnicity. Where obvious and sensible, these codes have been combined into broader categories, e.g.
Black NigerianandBlack Ghanaianare combined intoBlack.
The school workforce census records time-tabling information for teachers, including the number of hours they teach each subject. Within the census, lessons in computer science and ICT are separated, official counts of computing staff list both subjects. This report focuses on computing teachers which includes both computer science and ICT teachers. Computing is the national curriculum subject which includes elements of ICT, digital literacy and computer science (Kemp 2014), therefore these two data sets have been combined.
Where teacher qualifications are listed, the JACS code is used to identify the subject of the degree. The JACS code is a standardised code used to classify subjects in higher education. The JACS code for computing includes those degrees under the I category, as well as some degrees under the G category. In 2019, the workforce census changed the way it records qualifications, to include HECOS codes in addition to JACS, these codes are not used in this report, and still make up a small minority of all codes recorded. Teachers can have multiple degrees recorded against their records, where degree type is analysed, teachers can appear multiple times in the same data.
1 Limitations
- As this survey covers ~80% of state schools, comparisons between years should be interpreted as to representing the whole population with caution, as the return rate changes year on year, and not all school types are included.
- Raw data presented here hasn’t been adjusted to reflect the overall population of schools and there will be some differences between our figures and those presented by the DfE.
- Science includes lessons categorised as Science, as well as Biology, Chemsitry and Physics.
- The school workforce survey covers a single week in November, we have extrapolated figures from this week to whole years, but it remains possible that there might be substantial workforce changes within the year, with different teachers teaching different terms and teachers moving schools. Additionally, school time tables might change between terms (BIT c.2022), e.g. year 9 autumn term timetable slot to computing, spring term this changes to D&T.
- Other genders are not recorded in the data.
References
BIT. c.2022. “Gender Balance in Computing: Subject Choice Exploratory Research,” c.2022.
DfE. 2024. “Statistics: School Workforce.” https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.
Kemp, Peter Edward Joseph. 2014. “Computing in the National Curriculum: A Guide for Secondary Teachers.” London, England: NAACE, Computing at School. https://www.computingatschool.org.uk/resources/2014/september/computing-in-the-national-curriculum-a-guide-for-secondary-teachers.