Colleges delivered AoC recommendation-busting pay deals

College teachers received pay rises averaging 4.1 per cent last year – far higher than the Association of Colleges’ pay recommendation.

Analysis of new 2024-25 FE workforce data shows full-time equivalent general FE college teachers were paid a median of £37,600 – up from £36,100 the year before.

The AoC made a 2.5 per cent non-binding pay recommendation to college bosses.

Pay rises were even higher among support staff (5.4 per cent) and admin staff (5.3 per cent) within FE colleges. In contrast, college leaders received a 2.1 per cent boost to their median pay.

However, teacher pay did not meet the college membership body’s 6.5 per cent recommendation the year before, with the median teacher salary rising 5.9 per cent in 2023-24.

Sixth form college teachers remained the highest earners with a median salary of £49,700 last year following a 5.5 per cent rise.

FE college teachers continued to out-earn teachers at independent training providers, who received £32,000 in median pay in 2024-25, up 2.6 per cent from the previous year.

Colleges’ pay rises last year likely stem from the Department for Education’s £50 million “one-off grant” to support the 2024-25 salary increase.

University and College Union general secretary Jo Grady said: “Due to the University and College Union applying years of sustained industrial pressure to college bosses, staff have seen a small improvement to their pay.

“Unfortunately, it is nowhere near enough, and colleges will continue shedding staff to secondary schools while the pay gap continues to widen.

“We need a new deal for further education, increased government funding and real-terms pay rises.”

AoC’s chief executive David Hughes said he was “pleased but unsurprised” that colleges were prioritising staff investment.

“Despite this good news, pay still isn’t where we need it to be, so we highlighted this in our recent letter, signed by 175 college leaders, to the prime minister. In that letter one of our three asks was for ministers to sit down with us and the unions to agree a five-year pay plan to close the unjust pay gap with schools and industry.

“This would allow colleges to retrain and reward staff fairly and enable them to deliver high-quality learning to more people in key industrial priority sectors.”

Teacher ups and downs

DfE data shows the size of the FE workforce grew 2.3 per cent to over 200,000 staff, but growth was largely confined to general FE colleges.

Staff headcount in FE colleges inched up 2.5 per cent to 128,816 workers in 2024-25.

Meanwhile, sixth form colleges’ staff headcount fell by almost one in 10, to about 9,400 workers. The sharpest fall was among managers, whose numbers dropped by more than a fifth.

Meanwhile, headcount among ITPs fell by more than one tenth.

ITPs are the second largest employer in the FE sector, but headcount has dropped 15 per cent in four years to 35,907. However, the DfE said ITP estimates are scaled because ITPs are non-statutory and have lower return rates, so they are less reliable than GFEC/sixth form figures.

Simon Ashworth, deputy CEO and director of policy at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said the figures reflected the “growing financial pressures” facing many ITPs, particularly those heavily reliant on apprenticeship delivery.

He said: “While there have been annual uplifts in 16-to-19 funding, apprenticeship funding bands have historically been reviewed far less regularly, with many bands remaining unchanged for long periods.

“In some cases, funding bands are already operating close to the upper funding limit, further constraining providers’ ability to absorb rising staffing and delivery costs.”

Pay differs across subjects and regions

Most FE teaching staff taught vocational subjects and drew the lowest salaries.

A quarter of FE staff taught academic subjects and were the highest paid.

Philosophy teachers came top with an average salary of £45,576 last year, whereas the lowest paid were retail and commercial enterprise teachers and animal care teachers, on £31,361 and £32,211 respectively.

General FE colleges had the smallest pay differences across England. Full-time equivalent teaching staff in Yorkshire and the Humber were paid a median annual salary of £35,500, one fifth lower than the £42,900 paid to a London equivalent teacher.

Meanwhile, teachers in local authority-run education providers in the East Midlands were paid half as much as their London equivalents, £27,600 compared to £56,200 respectively.

Construction and SEND vacancies

For the first time the DfE published its own retention metrics measuring the percentage of staff that remained in the FE sector from one academic year to the next.

The data only covered colleges but revealed around 85 per cent of teaching staff stayed in the sector in the last academic year.

Analysis also found retention was highest for managers and leaders, and lowest for admin staff.

Meanwhile, teaching vacancies had declined to 3.5 per cent, down from 3.9 per cent.

Vacancies for SEND teachers specialising in speech and communication were the highest at 9.3 per cent. Sensory and supported learning for SEND learner roles were also at least 5 per cent unfilled.

Construction teaching positions had the second highest vacancy level, with 7.3 per cent of posts vacant by the end of the academic year.

Zero-hour contracts

In 2024-25, two-thirds of the workforce (67.4 per cent) who had permanent or fixed-term contracts worked full time, similar to last year (67.7 per cent).

Two-thirds of teaching staff also worked full-time, which was similar to the previous year.

Eight in 10 FE college teachers are now on permanent contracts, compared with 91 per cent of sixth form teachers and 90 per cent of ITP teachers.

FE colleges remain the biggest users of zero-hours contracts among teaching staff. In 2024-25, 10.4 per cent of teachers were on zero-hours contracts, compared with 2.4 per cent in sixth form colleges and 2.6 per cent at ITPs.

Governor long-service drop

Former FE commissioner Shelagh Legrave previously warned that governors should not be serving more than two terms, a maximum of eight years.

The data shows the proportion of governors serving between nine to 12 years has fallen over the last four years. After a peak in 2022-23 of nearly 7 per cent of governors in this bracket, the proportion dropped to 4.6 per cent last year.

The proportion of those who have served over 12 years in a role has also dropped from 5 per cent to 3.3 per cent over the last four years.

Overall, there were 100 fewer governors serving in FE colleges and sixth form colleges last year, down to an estimated 3,600.

Additionally, sixth form colleges recorded more unfilled governor vacancies than FE colleges.

Sixth form colleges had a 9 per cent empty seat rate across their governing boards, which has been rising over the last 4 years. FE colleges had 6 per cent vacancy rate, which has more or less stayed the same.

Diversity improvement

Ethnicity data showed a growing population of ethnic minority workers in FE.

Last year, a total of 23.7 per cent identified themselves as from an ethnic minority group, up from 21.9 per cent the year before.

Leadership has marginally improved its ethnic minority representation. Asian leaders made up 4.1 per cent of the cohort, while Black leaders accounted for 2 per cent of the workforce.

Ethnic representation amongst governing boards has also increased. Nearly one-fifth (19.8 per cent) of college governors were from an ethnic minority group, up from 17.5 per cent in 2021-22.

Some 7.8 per cent of governors identified as Asian or Asian British, 4.3 per cent as white minorities, and 4.2 per cent as Black or Black British.

Regarding gender, three out of every five (58.8 per cent) further education teachers are female.

The proportion of female leaders in FE colleges remained the same last year (54.9 per cent), but increased two percentage points at sixth form colleges to 53 per cent.