A report by Frontier Economics, commissioned by The Education and Training Foundation (ETF), was published last week and analyses the Further Education (FE) sector in England.

The report draws on over 90,000 employment contracts contained in the Staff Individualised Record (SIR) for the 2017-18 teaching year. It describes and analyses the characteristics of FE providers and the FE workforce in detail, and looks at how the sector has changed over time.           

The report shines a light on different actors in the FE sector, including providers, teachers, and the workforce as a whole. Within these, it analyses aspects of employment and staff pay, including differentiation based on age, ethnicity, region, working hours and gender distribution.

Teacher pay has fallen slightly in the last year

Median teacher pay fell from £31,800 in 2016-17 to £31,600 in 2017-18. Changes in teacher pay vary across regions, however. In the last six years, teacher pay has risen in Greater London and the South, but fallen in the North and the Midlands & East.

Part-time work is common across the sector

Across the sector, almost half of FE staff work part-time. This figure has remained largely consistent over the past five years. Part-time work is especially pronounced at local authority providers of Further Education, where 77% of staff work part-time.

The majority of the workforce is female

Over 60% of the FE workforce is female. This has not changed substantially compared to last year. Across occupations, apprentices have seen the largest increase in the proportion of women, up to 59% from 53% last year.

You can download the full report below. 

Frontier regularly advises public and private sector clients on labour markets, education and skills issues applying a wide range of quantitative and qualitative techniques.

For more information, please contact media@frontier-economics.com, or call +44 (0)20 7031 7000.