With a teaching workforce of well over half a million, the UK boasts more teachers than employees in almost any other profession.
Despite the teacher recruitment crisis, the number of teachers in UK schools continues to grow and recruitment company Indeed claims teaching is the UK’s most popular career.
But what is the size of the teaching workforce across the home nations? Below we look at the number of teachers working in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The number of teachers in the UK
There are currently 614,391 teachers in the UK. This number is made up of staff working across the UK’s 29,202 schools, including preschool settings, primary and secondary schools and other establishments such as special schools, in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The exact breakdown of UK teachers is as follows:
How many teachers are there in England?
In England data from the Department for Education, published in June 2025, shows there are 513,436 teachers, including those on part-time contracts. This works out as 468,258 full-time equivalent teachers. Of this total, 76 per cent (388,124) are female.
Broken down by phase, and including those on part-time contracts, the split is as follows:
- 242,001 teachers in nurseries and primary schools.
- 234,406 in secondary schools.
- 31,246 in special schools or pupil referral units.
The remaining staff are centrally employed by a local authority and not attached to any single school setting.
How many teachers are there in Scotland?
In Scotland there are 53,412 teachers. The numbers below are collated from Scottish government statistics published in March 2025.
- 24,468 in primary schools.
- 24,987 in secondary schools.
- 2,138 in special schools.
- 1,140 are centrally employed.
- 679 in nurseries.
There are many more female teachers than male in Scotland, especially in the primary sector, where 89 per cent of teachers are female.
How many teachers are there in Wales?
In Wales there are 25,740 teachers in local authority-maintained schools, based on the latest available data.
- 12,250 in primary schools.
- 1,715 in middle schools.
- 10,505 in secondary schools.
- 920 in special schools.
- 320 in pupil referral units.
According to the school workforce data for Wales from November 2023, 74.2 per cent of teachers are female and 24.8 per cent teach in Welsh.
How many teachers are there in Northern Ireland?
In Northern Ireland there were 21,803 teachers in 2024-25 (20,124 full-time equivalent), according to workforce data from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. The breakdown for this is as follows:
- 9,342 in primary or preparatory schools.
- 10,954 in secondary schools.
- 1,289 in special schools
- 218 in preschool education.
How much do teachers in the UK get paid?
From September 2025, a newly qualified teacher in England will start on a minimum of £32,916. Find out more about what teachers get paid in England by checking the 2025-26 teaching pay scales.
In November 2025, a three-stage pay deal was agreed for teachers in Scotland, meaning that a probationer would earn £34,938 from August 2025, with this figure rising to £36,159 in August 2026. Find full details of the new pay scales here.
And check out this Tes article on the differences in teacher pay between the home nations in recent years.
