91����

There will be a steep fall in the number of teacher trainees next year, government data has confirmed.

The need for postgraduate initial teacher trainees is 23 per cent lower for the 2026-27 academic year compared with this year, according to Department for Education .

This will amount to 6,120 fewer teachers entering training than in 2025-26, across both primary and secondary phases.

The DfE said that the decrease is due to falling rolls in primary schools, with secondary rolls also beginning to fall as a result of a drop in the birth rate.

Teacher retention forecasts are more favourable for the next academic year, the government said, citing analysis from its new .

The latest data comes after the DfE said that the average school will need no extra teachers until at least 2029.

The need for primary ITT recruits has fallen by 28 per cent year on year - or by 2,130 entrants - and secondary ITT need has fallen by 21 per cent, or by 3,990 entrants.

Teacher supply has been helped by a recent increase in ITT recruitment, the government said.

The DfE’s teacher pay award of 4 per cent in 2025 is forecast to “improve teacher retention levels further and thus reduce future workforce losses”, the government added.

While the need for teacher trainees may have decreased, the government said that recruitment can still exceed need.

The DfE has also changed the language it uses on ITT recruitment, with the word “need” now replacing “target”. When asked by 91���� about this, the DfE said the reason was to present a “more holistic picture of teacher demand and supply”.

Need can still be compared directly with targets from previous years, a DfE spokesperson confirmed.

��

The number of teacher trainees needed has fallen by 4,335 across the more than 15 subjects that have seen a drop for next year. Need has increased by just 345 across the three subjects where there is an increase (business studies, Classics and English).

Music has seen the most significant fall - a 54 per cent drop in need for 2026-27.

The DfE said that this was due to improved recruitment in previous years and healthier retention forecasts.

Other subjects that have seen considerable drops in ITT need are physics (by 43 per cent), religious education (42 per cent), drama (40 per cent) and computing (37 per cent).

This is despite concerns that 700,000 GCSE students may lack a physics specialist.

The figures also come after the government announced significant cuts to teacher-training bursaries in a wide range of subjects. 91���� revealed the impact of these bursary cuts on subjects earlier this year.

Drop in pupil numbers

As 91���� first reported in February, the number of teachers needed in the system is forecast to continue to fall until the end of the decade.

The latest teacher-demand trajectories show that the number of primary teachers needed will fall from 215,631 actual teachers in 2024-25 to just 207,054 primary teachers needed in 2027-28.

This reflects changes in pupil demographics, with primary pupil numbers falling by 4.9 per cent over the same time period.

Secondary teachers will decrease from 219,000 teachers working in 2024-25 to 218,931 teachers needed in 2027-28.

While secondary student numbers are also forecast to fall, the DfE does not expect teacher demand to reduce rapidly because the “pupil bulge moves into post-16 where class sizes are smaller and the curriculum is broader”.

‘Reversing the damage’

Jack Worth, education workforce lead at the National Foundation for Educational Research, said that the lower ITT targets published by the DfE today reflect “several key trends”, which, when viewed together, “suggest future teacher supply is likely to come closer to meeting what the system will need to maintain the status quo”.

He added: “However, this is not a time for complacency. Sustained progress will be essential to reverse the damage that previous under-supply has caused to the extent of specialist teaching in shortage secondary subjects, and particularly in schools serving the most disadvantaged communities.”

Mr Worth said: “Helpfully, DfE has published a considerable amount of alongside the ITT targets on how they have been estimated and what different factors are driving the target changes. This is welcome transparency that should aid a greater understanding in the sector about how the targets are estimated.”

��