Six-in-10 teachers have not received a 1 per cent pay rise this year, according to a survey conducted by the NASUWT.

The teaching union said its findings, based on responses from more than 8,000 teachers, were “deeply concerning” and that teachers’ pay cuts had contributed to making the profession “less and less attractive to new graduates”.

The Department for Education accepted a recommendation from the School Teachers’ Review Body last summer to increase the bottom and top of all classroom teacher and leadership pay ranges by 1 per cent in 2016-17.

The award was in line with an overarching government policy to cap all public sector pay increases at 1 per cent a year up to 2019-20.

That 1 per cent pay rise would, in itself, represent a real-terms pay cut, with inflation at 1.6 per cent in the year to December 2016, according to the Consumer Price Index.

However, in the NASUWT’s survey, carried out in November and December, 59 per cent of teachers reported that they had not even received a 1 per cent rise.

The survey also showed that 60 per cent of teachers had failed to progress up their pay range.

In addition, 55 per cent of teachers reported being set performance-management objectives this year that they felt were unrealistic and unachievable. Some 79 per cent said their objectives contained requirements beyond their control.

Chris Keates, NASUWT general secretary, said: “Six years of deep cuts have resulted in teachers’ pay being eroded to the value of tens of thousands of pounds each year.

“The teacher recruitment and retention crisis will not be resolved by continuing to pursue a policy that allows schools to pay teachers as little as they can get away with.”

The DfE was contacted for comment.

This is an edited article from the 27 January edition of TES. Subscribers can read the full article here. To subscribe, click here. This week’s TES magazine is available in all good newsagents. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here.