Pay campaign

Pay campaign news update

Letter to Gillian Keegan urging the publication of the STRB report before Parliament dissolves on 30 May.

This joint letter from the unions representing the vast majority of teachers and school leaders in England urges the secretary of state to immediately publish the STRB Report and to confirm the Government’s 2024-25 pay and funding offer to teachers and school leaders.

Before Easter, over 150,000 National Education Union (NEU) teacher members – just over 50 per cent of those eligible to do so – took part in our preliminary ballot over pay and funding. Over 90 per cent of those who responded said they would vote ‘yes’ to strike action if asked in a formal ballot.

Following that result, delegates at our annual conference agreed an emergency motion that set the strategy for our next steps. We are ready, we are prepared, and we are able to take any further industrial action necessary to ensure educators and schools get the fair deal they deserve.

In April, the NEU presented clear oral evidence to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) of the need for a fully funded, above-inflation pay rise and further funding to improve staffing levels.

Our evidence included powerful testimony from practicing teachers and set out how years of real-terms pay cuts and excessive workload have created a recruitment and retention crisis that puts education on the brink, jeopardising pupil provision, especially for those most in need.

Preliminary ballot results - England

Over the last four weeks teachers in England have been voting in their tens of thousands in our preliminary online ballot. Thank you to every single one of you who voted to demonstrate to the Government the strength of feeling among teachers on the issues of pay and funding in our schools.

Overall Turnout: 145,197 (50.3%)

Q1: Do you agree that you should receive an above-inflation pay rise for 2024-25?

YES: 97.7% NO: 2.3%

Q2: Would you vote “yes” to strike action for a fully funded, above-inflation pay rise that constitutes a meaningful step towards a long-term correction in pay, and further funding to provide improved levels of staffing provision in schools and education services?

YES: 90.3% NO: 9.7%

Our national executive will meet next week, at our conference in Bournemouth, to discuss this result and decide the next steps we’ll be taking.

The preliminary ballot of support staff in England and Wales is still live and will close on 19 April.

Together we will save our schools.

2023 Pay implementation

Last year, NEU members voted overwhelmingly to accept the pay offer.

NEU members’ strike action forced the Government to improve its 2023-24 pay offer to teachers by 3 per cent, to 6.5 per cent, and commit an extra £900 million to properly fund the teacher pay offer and protect support staff jobs.

The NEU has continued to campaign for a properly funded correction in teacher pay to reverse the real-terms cuts imposed since 2010 and for further improvements in education funding to restore the percentage of GDP devoted to education to at least the 5 per cent OECD average. Read more on how the 2023 pay offer was funded.