Our verdict
The number of full-time equivalent secondary and special school teachers increased by 2,346 during Labour’s first year in office, but we don’t yet have figures for how the number of further education teachers—who are also included in this target—has changed.
Labour’s manifesto stated: “Labour will recruit an additional 6,500 new expert teachers. We will get more teachers into shortage subjects, support areas that face recruitment challenges, and tackle retention issues.”
Education is a devolved matter, so we assume the pledge refers to state-funded schools in England, which fall within the control of the Westminster government.
The manifesto commitment did not explicitly state whether the target was for a 6,500 increase among all teachers, or only some types, and this has led to the Conservatives accusing the government of “fiddling the figures” by not looking at the overall number of teachers, including primary school teachers.
However the government has been clear that the target relates to secondary, special school and further education teachers specifically, and this was made explicit prior to the election—during the campaign the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer referred at least twice to recruiting 6,500 teachers in secondary schools.
The government’s “Plan for Change”, launched in December 2024, restated the commitment, saying it would focus “on subjects with shortages and areas with the biggest recruitment challenges”. However it did not add any further detail on how progress would be measured.
Some further detail came in a written ministerial statement in May 2025, in which Ms Phillipson said the target was to recruit 6,500 additional expert teachers “across secondary and special schools, and our colleges”.
However, the government did not set out full details until February 2026, when it confirmed that its target was for there to be “at least 6,500 more teachers working in our secondary, special schools and colleges at the end of this Parliament, than at the start”.
It also confirmed that the baseline for the target would be the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) teachers in the 2023/24 academic year as measured by the School Workforce Census (for secondary, special and pupil referral unit (PRU) schools) and the Further Education Workforce in England publication (for further education colleges, sixth-form colleges and schools-based providers).
In 2023/24 these sources showed there were 245,805 secondary and special school teachers and 38,821 further education FTE teachers respectively, for a total baseline figure of 284,626.
This means that the pledge will be achieved if the total number of teachers in secondary, special schools and colleges is at least 291,126 by the end of the parliament.
This definition means that progress towards the government’s target will not only depend on the number of new teachers joining the workforce, but also on the number leaving the workforce.
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We’re currently rating this pledge as “in progress”.
While the government has announced several measures to address teacher recruitment and training, at the moment we only have partial data showing how the number of teachers has changed during Labour’s first year in office.
The School Workforce Census for 2024/25 shows that in November 2024 there were 219,001 FTE secondary teachers, and 29,151 teachers working in special schools and PRUs—a total of 248,151.
This is an increase of 2,346 compared to the previous year.
However, we don’t yet have data showing how the further education workforce has changed—the government says this is expected in May 2026. So as things stand we can’t reliably say what progress the government has made towards its overall target, even in its first year.
We do know the government has announced measures to increase the number of teaching entrants.
In July 2024, the Department for Education announced it would relaunch and “expand” its main teacher recruitment campaign, “Every Lesson Shapes a Life”, as part of its efforts to recruit the additional 6,500 new teachers. And in May 2025 it announced it would shorten the duration of postgraduate teaching apprenticeships, a key route into the profession, from 12 months to nine, in a bid to drive up numbers.
In February 2025 the government set out a number of other measures it says will improve teacher recruitment and retention in its delivery plan.
As we develop this Government Tracker we’re keen to hear your feedback. We’ll be keeping the Tracker up to date and adding more pledges in the coming months.
Progress displayed publicly—so every single person in this country can judge our performance on actions, not words.
Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister – 24 September 2024