If 2025 was a year of false starts on school workforce issues, 2026 looks set to be when these issues come to a head.

For much of the past year, difficult decisions on pay, funding and workforce reform were deferred. In 2026, those choices will no longer arrive one by one. Instead, they will converge on the same timeline, creating a period of heightened uncertainty for schools.

The question for the year ahead is whether this convergence leads to collision, compromise or, more optimistically, consensus.

So, what exactly can leaders expect from 2026?

Strong reactions to reforms

The year is likely to begin noisily. The long-awaited schools White Paper and Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Review are expected early in the year, and both are highly political.

Expectations are high across the sector, but so too is the risk of disappointment. Any proposals seen as limiting entitlement, shifting responsibility or failing to address funding pressures are likely to provoke strong reactions from parents, schools and unions.

Meanwhile, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is expected to gain royal assent in the first half of the year. While parts of this bill are broadly welcomed, proposals affecting academy freedoms, pay and conditions and workforce structures are likely to face detailed scrutiny. And with the government lacking a majority in the upper chamber, the bill is unlikely to pass without amendment.

Changes to teacher pay and conditions

By February, a potentially riled-up sector’s attention is likely to shift sharply to pay and conditions. The School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) has been asked to make recommendations on pay for the next three years and to give a view on the 1,265 hours of directed time allowance, with the government response expected in March.

As in previous years, unions are calling for above-inflation increases to address long-term, real-terms erosion. However, the government has indicated that pay should rise roughly in line with inflation, with schools having to part-fund some of this from existing budgets.

What makes this round different is the clarity of the fiscal position. In its evidence to the pay review bodies, the Treasury has been explicit that no additional funding will be provided beyond existing settlements.

Any recommendation above the Department for Education’s suggested 6.5 per cent over three years would therefore need to be funded from an already squeezed DfE budget. Add to that the possibility of tinkering with the 1,265-hour allowance, and the risk of escalation becomes clear.

High risk of industrial action

The STRB is likely to recommend something above the 6.5 per cent DfE suggestion, but well short of the pay restoration unions are calling for. The DfE won’t have any new money, and as union leaders have suggested in recent weeks, the risk of collision is growing.

The NEU teaching union has already indicated that it will hold an indicative ballot of its members on pay and school funding in February, and the NASUWT teaching union is likely to follow a similar path.

April may prove to be the decisive month as teaching unions gather for their annual conferences and the mood of the membership is tested.

Decisions about whether to move from indicative positions towards formal industrial action are likely to be taken at the same time as significant changes to industrial action law come into force under the Employment Rights Act.

Measures such as reduced ballot thresholds and the introduction of electronic balloting lower the practical barriers to successful strike ballots.

This combination means the risk of industrial action in 2026 is arguably higher than at any point since the strikes of 2023, and the potential impact is greater if the NEU and NASUWT - and potentially the leadership unions - are in step here. Summer term strikes appear a realistic possibility.

Ongoing retention challenges

While these national debates play out, schools continue to deal with the day-to-day realities of staffing.

Recruitment to initial teacher training has begun to improve, and a tightening graduate labour market may make teaching appear more attractive to some. However, the cumulative impact of years of missed targets will continue to be felt, particularly in secondary schools and more remote areas.

Retention will continue to be a key concern for school leaders. For many teachers, the pressures that prompt exit are cumulative rather than sudden.

Workload, behaviour, complaints and accountability pressures all contribute to a sense that the job has become harder to sustain. The growing use of artificial intelligence to generate complaints seems likely to make this worse.

Restructures, mergers and cost-saving measures

The sector will continue to innovate through greater flexibility in an effort to retain staff, but the underlying pressures remain. Similar patterns are visible across both the state and independent sectors, with restructures, mergers and cost-saving measures becoming more common.

Taken together, 2026 looks set to be a year when tough policy choices have to be made. Pay, funding, changing employment rights and workforce pressures are no longer isolated issues but landing simultaneously.

What this convergence leads to will depend on how much trust and flexibility remain. Time will tell whether the system is able to navigate this moment without further disruption.

Alistair Wood is chief executive of Edapt

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