Number of qualified early years teachers in England dropped by 77% over last nine years

• Share of early-years settings staffed by at least one graduate 0% in Middlesbrough and 8% in Cambridgeshire, but 73% in Wandsworth
• Graduates in early years settings associated with better development outcomes for children
• Analysis underlines scale of the challenge facing political parties – including Labour Party’s pledge to increase the number of graduates in early years

The number of graduate early -ears teachers in England has dropped by 77% over the last nine years, a new report from the innovation charity Nesta finds.

Nesta’s analysis of the latest Department for Education data reveals that just 9% (or 21,500) of the early years workforce have accredited graduate status. The findings underline the scale of the challenge facing political parties – including the Labour Party, which recently pledged to increase the number of graduates working in early years settings.

The latest in Nesta’s education research series finds that while the average share of private, voluntary and independent settings staffed by at least one graduate across English local authorities is 37% and as high as 73% in Wandsworth, there are none at all in Middlesbrough and just 8% in Cambridgeshire.

This is despite evidence, supported by Nesta’s analysis, that local authorities with a higher proportion of early-years settings staffed by graduates tend to achieve better development outcomes for children. This is known as reaching a ‘Good Level of Development’, which is assessed by children meeting goals across communication and language, personal, social and emotional development, physical development, literacy and numeracy.

Looking at the different models for childcare settings, the report finds that just 7% of the workforce in private nurseries that offer the government-funded 15 hours of free childcare for three- and four-year-olds had graduate status. This is the lowest share of all provider types, excluding childminders, compared to 30% in independent schools and 18% in state-funded early years settings.

Fionnuala O'Reilly, lead behavioural scientist in fairer start at Nesta, said: “A Government looking to narrow the disadvantage gap during children’s earliest years should be concerned that the number of graduates in nurseries has plummeted over the last decade.

“Our research suggests that the presence of qualified professionals in early-years settings is associated with improvements in children’s development, yet in some areas there are no graduates in place. Pay and working conditions make it difficult to attract and retain highly qualified staff.

“While the last year has seen some improvement in the rate of early-years graduates, more will need to be done to reverse the long-term downward trend.”

Nesta’s research suggests that to address the early-years graduate gap in England, we would need to recruit 9,400 new graduates into nurseries, at a cost of around £319 million. This would be 0.27% of the UK government’s total spending on education in 2021/22, which was £116 billion according to the IFS.

While there are several routes to early-years initial teacher training (EYITT), also known as accredited graduate status, there were just 534 entrants to EYITT in England in 2022-23. While this is a 17% increase in new entrants compared to the previous year (458), it is a 77% decrease compared to the peak of 2,327 in 2013/14.

One factor that could be contributing to the decrease in graduates in the workforce is that salaries for qualified early-years teachers are on average thousands of pounds lower than salaries for qualified primary school teachers. Official data shows that early-years teachers are paid between £25,714 and £36,961, compared to between £28,000 and £43,385 for primary school teachers.

The report published today, The missing graduates in England’s nurseries, also highlights the fact that early years graduates are not awarded qualified teacher status, even though their standards, responsibilities, and training are comparable to those of teachers in statutory settings. This creates a two-tier system that devalues early-years qualifications and may be undermining efforts to boost recruitment.

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Notes to editors

1. Nesta’s analysis is of government-funded early-years provision for children aged 2 to 4 in state-funded schools (including nurseries), and private, voluntary, and independent providers (including childminders) in England. It is based on data collected via the early-years census, school census, and school level annual school census. Staff qualifications data relates to private, voluntary, and independent (PVI) providers only. These providers make up 90% of providers excluding childminders. It used the share of providers with at least one accredited graduate staff member and the share of children registered at providers with one or more graduate staff member offering the 15-hour entitlement.
2. For more information on the analysis or to speak to one of the experts involved, please contact Kieran Lowe, Media Manager, on 020 7438 2576 or [email protected]. Spokespeople are available for broadcast interviews.