An extra £190 million will be funnelled into 16-19 education from September, the education secretary has announced.
Bridget Phillipson has said the funding, £160 million of which will be for colleges and other 16-19 providers, should be used for “strategic priorities, including [staff] recruitment and retention”. The remaining £30 million is for schools as part of a £615 million deal towards a 4 per cent pay award for schools, also announced this afternoon.
This funding comes on top of already planned increases to 16-19 funding rates of 3.78 per cent for 2025-26 announced in March. The Department for Education (DfE) promised to revise 16-19 allocations by June.
DfE will use the £160 million to increase per-student funding rates, programme cost weightings, English and maths delivery and disadvantage funding lines.
But their decision to route funds through 16-19 study programmes will once again disadvantage colleges and providers with larger cohorts of adult learners and apprentices.
In a lengthy written ministerial statement this afternoon accepting the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendation for a 4 per cent pay rise in 2025-26, Phillipson said: “Alongside this announcement for schools, I am pleased to be able to announce that we will also invest an additional £160 million in financial year 2025 to 2026 to support colleges and other 16 to 19 providers.
“This will power our growth mission and enable these institutions to address the immediate challenges they face in recruiting and retaining the expert teachers so essential to delivering our plan for change”.
Although it has no formal role in setting teacher pay in colleges, this was the first year the STRB was asked to provide the government with evidence about pay in colleges.
Colleges and unions have campaigned heavily for extra funding to close the growing pay gap favouring school teachers over college teachers.
Gap analysis
STRB’s report, published today, cited Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that the pay gap stood at almost £7,000, or 18 per cent, in academic year 2024-25.
Further education college unions and the Association of Colleges (AoC) will begin negotiations for a pay recommendation for 2025-26 next month. Meanwhile, sixth form college leaders hope today’s funding announcement can stave off further strike action.
Alongside pay demands, colleges are also facing “unprecedented” growth in 16-19 student numbers due to a population bulge hitting the post-16 sector.
David Hughes, AoC chief executive, said the funding “aimed at supporting colleges to match the pay increase recommended for school teachers is great news and very welcome”.
Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, said:
“Colleges will be very pleased to receive this welcome funding boost. The decision to extend the funding uplift to colleges as well as schools reflects the principle established in the settlement of our recent legal action that schools and colleges will not be treated differently from each other in this regard.
“We hope this additional funding will enable us to reach a pay settlement for staff in sixth form colleges, and avoid the strike action that disrupted the education of so many young people earlier this year.”
But the extent to which the extra funding will be enough to match the 4 per cent school teacher pay award is contested.
UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: “As a bare minimum, college staff must be given the same uplift as school teachers as a step towards closing the pay gap between schools and colleges.
“The additional 16-19 funding is welcome, but will fall short of what the sector needs given an additional 60,000 16-19 yr old students are projected to enter the sector over the next two years.”
Gerry McDonald, who leads AoC’s pay negotiations with unions alongside running New City College was more positive.
He said: “Colleges work hard to recruit and retain great staff, and we want to pay our staff the wage they deserve. The funding announced today is a step towards being able to do just that: it means that the gap between school teachers’ pay and pay for college staff will not continue to increase,” he said.
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