Four in five teachers have considered leaving the profession!

81% of teachers said they have considered leaving teaching in the last year because of the pressures of workload.

Initial findings from the latest National Education Union workload survey, of 8,173 members, which are being published today at the NEU NUT Section Conference in Brighton, shows the continuing scale of the workload problem facing teachers and the impact this is having on their willingness to stay in the profession.

  • A staggering 81% of teachers said they have considered leaving teaching in the last year because of the pressures of workload.
 
  • 40% of respondents are spending more than 21 hours a week working at home at evenings and weekends
 
  • More than 80% are now teaching more hours than the average teaching hours in 2016, as schools face rising pupil numbers at the same time as a recruitment and retention crisis.
 
One third of teachers responding to the NEU survey said that their workload had never been manageable during the past year. Just over half said that it was only sometimes manageable, with only 15% saying that it was manageable all or most of the time. Less than 15% of teachers said that they had a good work-life balance all or most of the time.