Boardroom to classroom: How has the pandemic impacted career switches to teaching?

How are career changes impacting the education sector?

It’s well documented that since 2011 the overall number of teachers has, in general, not kept pace with increasing pupil numbers, with teacher recruitment and retention an ongoing dilemma for schools.

Time and time again, issues around workload, long working hours and endless administration are cited as reasons why people chose to leave the profession.

While there’s certainly no ‘silver bullet’ that can resolve these issues, specialist parent engagement software is making an impact on the profession, allowing parents and teachers to communicate digitally, significantly reducing the administrative burden and providing more flexibility.

As the digitisation of the profession continues to accelerate, many believe that more people will be attracted to a role in teaching.

Interestingly, overall recruitment of initial teacher trainees was 15% above target (6% above target for secondaries and 30% above for primaries) in 2020 - 21. This was the first time the overall target was achieved in nearly a decade.

Transitions to teaching: which subjects saw the biggest rise in interest?

To get a better understanding of specific trends around transitions to teaching over the course of the pandemic, we analysed thousands of Google Searches using Keyword Planner to get a better understanding of the subjects seeing the biggest rise in demand as well as the UK locations seeing the most change.

Our research found that between 2019-20, across all core subjects searches for teacher training courses were up. History saw the biggest growth in demand, closely followed by art and design as the most popular subjects, seeing the biggest spike in searches in 2020.

The wave of interest in history teaching could be linked to the unprecedented situation we found ourselves in back in 2020. In the UK, we were still grappling with the impact of our exit from the European Union, whilst the global pandemic raised questions about our globalised economy and the impact of industrialisation.

Perhaps this sparked interest in wanting to teach the younger generations about past mistakes and global events at a time when almost every aspect of our lives was being disrupted.

Annual Google search data for subject-specific teacher training was as follows:

While the overall spike in the number of searches for PE teachers was lower than history, art and design, music, science, maths and geography, unlike other subjects the spike in interest was actually continued from 2020 - 2021.

This interest could partly have been driven by Joe Wicks inspiring millions of people to keep active during the 2020 lockdowns with his live workout videos.

Similarly, lockdown motivated thousands of us to take up new sports as hospitality venues closed and non-essential travel was banned. The hour of outdoor time saw a surge in the number taking-up running or cycling, with one billion activities completed globally on the fitness app Strava in 2020_[1].

How did interest vary between primary and secondary teaching?

According to the data, secondary education saw the biggest growth in terms of potential new recruits when compared to primary (a 21% increase in searches between 2019 and 2020). While this can be attributed to a number of factors, engaging with secondary school and sixth form students and seeing them develop from young teenagers into young adults and then heading off to university is understandably incredibly rewarding.

Similarly, secondary education allows a person to make use of their own degree of specialism - something that will most likely have been taken into account by those considering a career move.

The remarkable work of teachers throughout the pandemic was recognised across the country, with many going above and beyond to ensure learning could continue. These heroic efforts clearly inspired others to consider a role in teaching - perhaps as they sought a more meaningful and fulfilling career.

How did the demand for teacher training vary by location?

It’s evident that while this trend is UK-wide, the majority of the cities seeing the biggest spike were located in the north of the country.

Glasgow, Liverpool and Sheffield saw the biggest spikes in demand between 2019 and 2020 for teacher training courses, while across the UK as a whole searches were up by more than 20%. Momentum even continued into 2021 for Glasgow with searches up a further 4.5% year-on-year despite lockdown restrictions beginning to lift.

While efforts from local authorities have been made to maintain or reduce the pupil:teacher ratio_[2], many have been struggling due to the vast increase in students. More recently, the average ratio in state-funded schools has increased by 2.2% from 18.1 to 18.5 children per teacher, with some authorities reporting increases of up to 11%.

However there are signals that demand could be bridged with some recruitment efforts. While schools in the North East have seen a rise of 3.5% (17.3 up to 17.9), searches for teacher training courses in Newcastle upon Tyne also saw a spike of 11.58% in 2020 showing there could be untapped potential out there.

The North West has also seen a sizable increase, with a 3.4% change to its pupil:teacher ratio, with the number of pupils per teacher increasing from 17.7 to 18.3.

Across the North West, Liverpool recorded the largest increase in its pupil:teacher ratio with 9% more students per qualified teacher than five years ago.

As many continue to seek more fulfilment from their career and day-to-day role, the number considering a move into teaching is likely to increase and hopefully alleviate some of this burden. Through the deployment of digital solutions, such as our school communication software, schools can help to reduce unnecessary workload and retain their valued staff.

Methodology

Using Google’s Keyword Planner tool, we looked at a range of seed keywords associated with teaching to gain an understanding of the search landscape for terms related to teacher training. Keywords included ‘primary school teacher training’, ‘maths teacher training’ and more.

For the regional data, we took a look at more generic teacher training related terms for each location such as ‘teacher training’ to establish a wider list of terms.

[1] https://www.businessofapps.com/data/strava-statistics/

[2] https://www.oxfordhomeschooling.co.uk/press/which-local-authorities-will-need-more-teachers-in-the-near-future/