Practical strategies to improve teacher retention in UK schools and MATs

The 44% rise in teachers leaving the profession in England between 2021-22 and 2022-23 was the sharpest post-pandemic spike – but the structural picture predates it. The most recent DfE data shows that nearly a third of teachers still leave the profession within their first five years, a rate that has worsened steadily since 2010. Long-term intentions also reflect this instability, with just 61% of teachers now expecting to still be teaching in three years’ time, compared with 75% before the pandemic.

The impact is uneven across the system, with schools in disadvantaged areas often facing higher turnover and greater recruitment difficulties, while independent and private schools tend to experience more stable staffing. While leavers fell slightly in 2023-24, overall turnover is still high, and schools continue to struggle to maintain a stable workforce.

From a MAT perspective, these teacher retention issues create uneven pressure across schools. Some sites may appear stable while others experience repeated turnover, masking wider structural issues. Over time, this leads to increased reliance on temporary staffing, internal cover arrangements, and inconsistent curriculum delivery.

For a more detailed look at teacher shortages, read our article Which areas in England have the biggest teacher shortages?

For those responsible for people and operations in schools and MATs, teacher retention is more than a staffing statistic. It shapes how schools function day to day - affecting everything from staff morale and budget forecasting to curriculum consistency and leadership pipelines. For school and MAT leaders, teacher retention is an important HR metric that also indicates organisational health. 

Improves staff morale and organisational culture

Consistent staffing creates a more stable working environment where teachers can build professional relationships, collaborate across departments, and develop shared practice over time. This consistency is particularly important in MATs, where staff may already be working across different sites or systems.

Where turnover is high, morale often becomes fragmented. New staff repeatedly entering teams can disrupt established dynamics, increasing pressure on existing staff who may already be managing high workloads. Over time, this can erode trust in leadership and reduce engagement across the organisation.

Reduces absence and workload pressure

High turnover places immediate pressure on remaining staff, who must absorb additional responsibilities or cover vacancies. This isn’t just a short-term operational issue. Sustained workload increases are closely linked to rising absence rates and longer-term burnout.

As absence increases, the pressure cycle often intensifies. Schools rely more heavily on temporary cover or internal redistribution of work, which further reduces capacity and increases strain.

Read our sick leave report to learn more about the top reasons that teachers take time off.

Strengthens trust-wide consistency and performance

In MATs, consistent staffing is what makes trust-wide curriculum delivery and shared practice possible. . When teachers stay, students benefit from clearer progression pathways, and schools can implement initiatives consistently across the trust.

Over time, stable teacher retention builds deeper subject expertise, stronger department cultures and more effective collaboration across schools. Teachers who stay and develop within a trust are also more likely to step into middle and senior leadership roles, strengthening  succession planning and reducing reliance on external recruitment.

Supports financial efficiency and planning

From a CFO perspective, turnover of any kind carries significant hidden costs. Recruitment, onboarding, temporary staffing and training all create recurring expenditure that is often reactive rather than planned.

High rates of turnover also reduce forecasting accuracy. When staffing is unstable, workforce budgets become harder to predict, particularly in the case of unexpected departures mid-year. Improving teacher retention therefore supports not only cost reduction, but also financial stability and planning confidence across the school or trust.

Supports better student outcomes and school performance

Workforce stability has a direct bearing on what happens in the classroom. Research using data from state schools in England found that higher teacher turnover has a small but significant negative effect on students' final qualifications at the end of compulsory schooling. Chronic turnover also increases student disciplinary problems and damages the culture that underpins effective learning.

For school and MAT leaders, this connection between workforce stability and pupil outcomes makes teacher retention a school improvement issue, not just an HR one.

Understanding why teachers leave is the first step in building an effective retention strategy – but it's rarely one thing. Analysing your teacher turnover will be key to understanding the challenges you face in your school or trust.

• Workload is the dominant factor. A 2025 report found that 90% of teachers considering quitting in 2023-24 cited workload as a key reason. The DfE's own Working Lives of Teachers and Leaders survey found that 94% of those considering leaving cited high workload as an important factor with around half of teachers citing that data recording and analysis, behaviour and incident follow-up, lesson planning, and marking all took up too much time. 
• Working hours and work life balance. The expectation that much of this work happens outside contracted hours compounds the problem. Around 40% of teachers in England regularly work in the evenings, and on average teachers work eight hours more per week than their counterparts in comparable OECD countries. This falls disproportionately on women - who make up 76% of the teaching workforce. The most significant group of leavers are women aged 30 to 39, with research suggesting that teaching is less supportive of work-family balance than other careers, making it harder to sustain alongside caring responsibilities.
• Stress and burnout follow from sustained pressure. The Education Support Teacher Wellbeing Index 2025 found that 78% of teachers reported experiencing workplace stress, with education staff scoring 8–11 points below the average UK adult population on wellbeing measures. An alarming 36% of school staff score at a level consistent with probable clinical depression on the Warwick-Edinburgh wellbeing scale - the lowest score recorded since the index began in 2019.
• The emotional demands of the role have intensified significantly. The same index found that 70% of staff are now providing emotional regulation support to pupils on a weekly basis - a 31% increase on pre-pandemic levels - with 49% saying these additional responsibilities negatively affect their own mental health.
• An expanding role with shrinking support. Teachers are increasingly expected to fill gaps left by shortfalls in mental health, social care and SEND services. The Education Select Committee's 2024 inquiry found that escalating workloads were often a direct result of those shortfalls in other public services. Over the same period, the number of pupils with an Education, Health and Care plan has doubled since 2016, and SEN support needs have grown by nearly 30% - without equivalent growth in the workforce. As Education Support noted in evidence to Parliament, teachers are being left to support pupils in areas of mental health where they are neither adequately supported nor trained. For many, the gap between what the job requires and what is actually resourced becomes unsustainable.
• Inspection pressure is adding to the strain. A 2024 NEU poll of over 2,000 teachers found that 72% had considered leaving because of the pressure Ofsted puts on their mental health, the unnecessary workload it creates, or both, with 98% saying inspections had a negative effect on staff morale and wellbeing.
• Pay remains a significant driver. The DfE's Working Lives of Teachers and Leaders survey found that 63% of those considering leaving cited pay dissatisfaction as an important factor - up from 57% the previous year.
• Lack of flexibility is a barrier for many. The DfE's Working Lives of Teachers and Leaders survey found that only 46% of teachers and leaders currently have a flexible working arrangement in place - meaning over half the workforce still don't.
• Career development and progression also matter. The Teacher Development Trust's 2025 CPD Landscape survey found that only 1 in 4 teachers say their CPD adequately considers the needs of students, and nearly 40% say it has not clearly improved their ability to perform their role. When development feels irrelevant and progression pathways are unclear, teachers look elsewhere.
• School culture and leadership round out the picture. The Teacher Wellbeing Index 2024 found that a significant majority of teaching staff report that dealing with increasingly challenging pupil behaviour is having a negative impact on their mental health and wellbeing. Where staff feel unsupported by leadership or undervalued in their day-to-day work, turnover follows - regardless of pay or workload levels elsewhere.

Rather than just moving schools, these systemic issues are leading to more teachers leaving the profession altogether. Over time, this places additional strain on remaining staff and makes long-term retention – and attracting new teachers into the profession - much harder to maintain.

For a more detailed look at the reasons teachers leave teaching, read our article Factors affecting teacher retention.

Research using data from state schools in England found that higher teacher turnover has a small but significant negative effect on students' final qualifications at the end of compulsory schooling. Here's what the evidence shows about what students gain when retention is strong — and what they lose when it isn't.

Supports curriculum continuity and academic progress 

When teachers stay, students benefit from consistency in curriculum delivery, pacing and expectation. High teacher turnover has been shown to negatively affect pupil outcomes particularly in schools where stability is already a challenge.

When teachers leave frequently, lessons may need to be restructured, pacing adjusted, and relationships rebuilt with new staff. Over time, this can affect progression, particularly in subjects that rely on cumulative knowledge. 

Builds the student–teacher relationships that drive engagement

Strong relationships between students and teachers are central to effective learning. Stable staffing gives those relationships time to develop, building  the trust that encouragesparticipation, confidence, and willingness to seek help.

Research consistently shows that positive student–teacher relationships are linked to improved engagement, attendance and attainment. For students who already need additional support, that continuity is particularly important. 

Creates the consistency that underpins ‘good’ behaviour 

Effective behaviour management in schools depends heavily on consistency. Consistent staffing allows behaviour expectations, classroom norms and pastoral relationships to embed over time. When teaching staff change frequently, expectations can shift between classrooms, creating uncertainty that weakens established routines and places additional strain on remaining staff.

Addressing teacher retention is therefore part of addressing behaviour - not a separate issue. According to 2025 data from charity Parentkind, 30% of state school parents report that lessons are disrupted by poor behaviour, compared to just 11% in private schools - a gap that reflects, in part, the greater staffing instability across the state sector.

Strengthens safeguarding through staff familiarity

The DfE’s safeguarding guidance emphasises the importance of building trusted relationships that facilitate communication with children and young people. When staff turnover is high, those relationships are harder to maintain, and early warning signs may be more difficult to spot.

Effective safeguarding relies on staff getting to know students well over time. While all employees are trained to identify concerns, consistency and familiarity helps teachers to notice subtle changes in behaviour or wellbeing, adding an important layer of protection for students.

Supports parental confidence and trust in schools 

Stable staffing contributes to how families perceive the quality and consistency of their child’s education. When teachers change frequently - particularly mid-year - it can raise questions about school stability that are difficult to address through communication alone.

In MATs, this perception can extend beyond individual schools, affecting trust-wide reputation and confidence. Families may begin to associate teachers moving on regularly with wider organisational challenges, which can influence engagement, admissions and broader stakeholder trust over time. Strong retention is therefore part of how schools build and maintain the trust of the communities they serve.

Understanding why teachers leave is only half the picture. The other half is building a structured response. Here are nine practical strategies to strengthen your teacher recruitment and retention strategy for the long term. 

Encourage a healthy work-life balance

Work-life balance is one of the most effective levers for improving retention - but only when addressed through specific, operational changes rather than general commitments to wellbeing. For MATs, this often means reviewing marking expectations, meeting frequency, and administrative burden consistently across schools - not just in individual sites where leaders happen to prioritise it. The DfE's Workload Reduction Toolkit offers a practical framework for school leaders to audit and reduce unnecessary tasks, with specific guidance on marking, planning and data management. Using it as a trust-wide exercise, rather than leaving it to individual schools, helps ensure workload expectations are consistent and manageable across the organisation.  Actively promoting flexible working arrangements signals that leadership takes work-life balance seriously in practice - not just in policy.

Build a culture where teachers want to stay

School culture has a direct impact on whether staff feel valued and supported in their roles. A key shift for effective retention strategies is moving from a compliance-driven environment to one that prioritises recognition, trust and professional respect.

This includes acknowledging workload challenges, celebrating good practice, and providing feedback that is constructive rather than purely corrective. Where school culture is strong, teachers are more likely to remain engaged even during busy or challenging periods. Where it’s weak, even well-resourced schools can experience higher turnover.

For MATs, culture cannot be left to individual schools to manage differently. Trust-wide expectations around recognition, communication and staff feedback - consistently applied - are what turn culture from an aspiration into something teachers actually experience day to day.

A culture that prepares well for inspection without creating a permanent state of anxiety around it is one of the most protective things a leadership team can build.

Prioritise continuous professional development

High-quality continuous professional development is a critical part of any teacher recruitment and retention strategy. Teachers are more likely to stay when they can see clear opportunities to develop their skills and progress professionally within their school or trust.

Effective CPD requires a focus on frequency, relevance and accessibility – and relevance matters most. Research by the Teacher Development Trust found that only 1 in 4 teachers say their CPD adequately considers the needs of their students, suggesting much of what is currently offered misses the mark. CPD that connects directly to classroom practice, rather than generic training days, is what teachers actually value. 

It's worth noting that CPD only works as a retention lever when it doesn't add to the very workload pressures driving teachers out. The DfE's own review of teacher professional development found that 87% of teachers cited workload as a barrier to engaging with training. The most effective CPD is embedded in the working day - through instructional coaching, peer observation and collaborative planning - rather than bolted on as an additional commitment outside it. 

For MATs, there is a real opportunity here. Trust-wide CPD programmes – aligned to classroom needs and leadership pathways - give teachers a development offer that standalone schools often can't match. Tracking engagement across schools can also help leaders to identify where participation is lower and where additional support may be needed. Building protected development time into timetables - in the same way the Early Career Framework does for new teachers - sends the clearest signal that professional growth is genuinely valued at every stage of a career, not just at the start.

Where possible, ensure pay progression routes are transparent and fairly applied - the NEU's 2024 survey found that 91% of teachers who were denied progression felt the decision was unfair.

Provide clear career progression opportunities

When progression routes are unclear, staff are more likely to look outside the profession for advancement opportunities. This is reflected in declining leadership ambition across the sector. According to NFER's Teacher Labour Market in England Annual Report 2024, only 37% of deputy and assistant headteachers now say they aspire to become headteachers, down from 55% in 2017, suggesting that fewer experienced teachers see a clear or appealing pathway into senior leadership.

Schools can respond to this by creating transparent, well-supported pathways into middle and senior leadership roles, underpinned by structured development programmes that make progression feel genuinely achievable. 

For MATs with multiple schools in the trust, leaders can offer progression routes such as lateral moves, secondments, trust-wide leadership roles, that standalone schools simply cannot. This gives teachers a reason to stay and grow within the organisation rather than looking elsewhere.

Offer support from leadership

Leadership support plays a significant role in whether teachers feel able to manage their workloads and remain in the profession. Leaders who engage regularly with staff, understand the pressures they face and respond to concerns proactively are more likely to retain teachers - but the nature of that support matters as much as its presence.

In MATs particularly, support cannot rely on individual leadership styles varying school by school. Trust-wide expectations around how leaders communicate, how concerns are escalated and how workload is monitored need to be consistent. Building middle leadership capacity — heads of department, phase leaders, pastoral leads — is what makes that consistency possible at scale. Without it, teacher experience becomes postcode-dependent within the same trust.

Take a look at our leadership guide for MATs for more advice on building leadership capacity across your trust.

Connect with teachers on a personal level

Retention improves when teachers feel seen as individuals rather than just roles within a staffing structure. This doesn't mean informal or boundary-less management - it means consistent engagement and genuine awareness of individual circumstances.

In practice, this might include regular one-to-ones that go beyond performance management, understanding career aspirations, or simply acknowledging workload pressures at particularly demanding points in the year - before Ofsted windows, at report-writing time, or during exam season. Small gestures of recognition, consistently applied, can have a significant impact on whether teachers feel valued. In larger MATs, maintaining this level of connection across schools needs to be built into the structure rather than left to chance. Line managers and middle leaders play a critical role here - they are the people teachers interact with daily, and their ability to listen, respond and advocate upwards is what makes trust-wide retention strategies feel real at school level. 

Use technology to support teachers

Technology plays an increasingly important role in reducing administrative burden and improving workforce efficiency. When systems are fragmented, teachers, HR teams and leadership teams spend unnecessary time duplicating data or navigating multiple platforms - adding to the workload pressures that drive turnover in the first place.

Integrated systems streamline processes such as HR administration, absence management and CPD tracking. For MATs, this also supports better visibility of workforce pressures across schools - making it easier to spot where retention risk is building before it becomes a resignation. Access Education People brings absence and workforce data into one place, to give leaders a single, joined-up view across their school or trust.

Offer flexible working where possible

Flexible working is increasingly cited as a factor in whether teachers stay or leave - yet fewer than half of teachers currently have any flexible arrangement in place. For schools and MATs, this doesn't mean abandoning timetabling structures, but it does mean actively looking for where flexibility is possible and removing barriers where it isn't.

In practice, this might include enabling part-time or job-share arrangements, or offering phased returns after periods of leave. The DfE's flexible working guidance for schools and the FWAMS programme offer practical support for leaders on how to implement arrangements without disrupting pupils. The case for acting is clear: 34% of teachers who left state education reported working flexibly in their next role - a figure that raises an obvious question about whether more could have been retained had flexible arrangements been available to them.

For MATs, flexible working can also be a trust-wide differentiator. Trusts that actively promote flexible arrangements in recruitment are better placed to attract and retain experienced teachers - particularly those with caring responsibilities - who might otherwise leave the profession entirely.

Support staff wellbeing and recognise the emotional demands of the role

Teaching has always carried emotional weight - but as we have seen, the demands placed on teachers have intensified significantly in recent years. Supporting wellbeing means ensuring teachers have access to proper wellbeing support - through Employee Assistance Programmes, professional supervision or peer support networks - and that pastoral and SEND responsibilities are properly resourced rather than quietly absorbed into existing workloads. 

For MATs, a trust-wide wellbeing strategy - with consistent support structures across all schools rather than varying by site - sends a clear message that staff welfare is an organisational priority, not an individual school concern.

Identifying and acting on retention risk requires visibility, and for most  schools and MATs, that visibility currently doesn't exist in a joined-up way. The strategies in this guide address the conditions that drive retention - but knowing whether they're working, and where the pressure is still building, requires data. For most schools and MATs, that data exists but sits in fragments: absence records in one system, CPD logs in another, turnover figures in a spreadsheet. Joined-up workforce visibility is what turns reactive HR into proactive retention management. 

Spot the early warning signs of retention risk

Retention risk is usually visible in patterns rather than single events. A gradual rise in absence, combined with lower CPD engagement or increasing workload pressure, can indicate early disengagement long before a resignation occurs.

On their own, these signals may not trigger concern. But when viewed together, they give HR teams a clearer picture of where pressure is building. This makes it possible to intervene earlier, whether through workload review, targeted support, or leadership input.

To learn more about workplace stress for teachers, read our article Schools' biggest secret stressors revealed.

Connect workforce data across all schools

For MATs in particular, workforce data is still fragmented across individual schools, which makes it difficult to see the full picture. One school may appear to have a retention issue, but without comparison, it’s unclear whether this is isolated or part of a wider trend.

MAT-wide visibility allows leaders to compare turnover, absence and engagement across schools. This helps to determine whether issues are structural, such as seasonal workload pressures, or linked to local factors like leadership changes.

For example, a trust that can see absence rates rising in three schools simultaneously - but not in others - is far better placed to identify whether this reflects a trust-wide policy issue, a seasonal pattern, or something specific to those schools' leadership or culture.

Move from reactive to proactive decision-making

With better visibility of workforce data, school leadership teams can shift from reactive management to proactive planning. Instead of responding once staff leave, they can act on early indicators of risk.

For example, if data shows rising absence and declining CPD participation in a specific department, targeted support can be introduced before turnover occurs. This approach is particularly valuable for CFOs balancing cost control with workforce stability, ensuring that investment in people is directed by evidence rather than assumption.

Strengthen long-term strategic workforce planning

Connected workforce data supports long-term planning as well as day-to-day decisions. It helps schools to forecast recruitment needs more accurately by identifying where turnover is likely to occur, and where staffing pressure is building. This includes understanding patterns such as subject shortages, schools with consistently higher turnover, or teams approaching succession gaps. It also supports internal progression planning, ensuring leadership pipelines are developed intentionally rather than reactively.

Access Education People supports this by bringing HR, absence and workforce data into one place, giving school leaders a clearer view of retention risk across the trust.