The early years workforce continues to face substantial recruitment and retention challenges despite recent growth in the number of staff, a report has found.
Poor pay and career progression for those working in early years settings remain stubborn issues, according to the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER).
The report also warns that these could hamper expansion of the free childcare entitlement, which is due to start today.
Working parents of children in England aged between nine months and 4 will now have access to 30 hours a week of childcare during term time.
Concerns expressed by the NFER echo those voiced by Sir David Bell in the unpublished early years review he carried out for the Labour Party last year.
Early years workforce growth in doubt
The government previously estimated that the early years workforce would have to grow by 35,000 staff between December 2023 and September 2025 to meet the needs of the planned entitlement expansion.
The NFER’s analysis - which draws on publicly available data such as the Department for Education’s Survey of Childcare and Early Years Providers - says that if the current rates of growth and acceleration in staff numbers continue, then the workforce size is on track to meet the government’s estimate.
However, it adds that providers have reported challenges with achieving the growth so far, and warns that further growth may be even more challenging, meaning the trends “may not necessarily continue”.
Although the target could be met at a national level, the NFER says there are likely to be regional discrepancies that are not being measured by government data.
Last month the government announced signing-on payments worth £1,000 for new early years staff in 38 local authorities. Recent recruitment efforts also include offering £4,500 to trained early years teachers in disadvantaged communities.
Early years workers with lower qualification levels have reported limited opportunities for career progression, with 49 per cent agreeing that there are opportunities for career progression at their work, compared with 57 per cent among similar workers, the NFER report finds.
Pay remains lower in early years
Pay levels in the early years sector are lower than both the general workforce and among similar workers, despite recently rising in relative terms, the report finds.
In 2022-23, early years workers earned 36 per cent less on average than other workers with similar characteristics and working patterns. There is limited opportunity for pay progression, the report suggests, meaning staff with different levels of experience and qualifications can receive relatively similar pay.
Total spend on early education reached £8 billion last year, which the DfE said was £2 billion more than the previous year.
In 2024, the government also announced an expansion grant to help early years settings deliver new places and cover a rise in the early years pupil premium.
The NFER has urged the government to continue increasing funding rates so early years providers can offer competitive wages to recruit and retain staff, with a pay structure that focuses on career progression and higher qualification levels.
Flagship policy ‘at risk of failure’
Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU teaching union, said: “Successive governments, including this one, have chosen to bury their heads in the sand rather than get to grips with the issues at hand. Now their flagship policies are at risk of failure”.
He added: “A growing reliance on public funding for childcare requires government accountability for ensuring decent pay and conditions and sector oversight.”
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, said that while recruitment efforts had been successful in the short term, more is “urgently needed”.
He added: “The government must put significant effort into improving the status and pay for early years roles, to make it an attractive and sustainable career and ensure that the expanded childcare promise is a success.”
Jack Worth, NFER school workforce lead, said that working in the early years needs to be “attractive enough to recruit new staff and also retain a higher level of staff” and to ensure it can “meet the demands of the expanded free childcare entitlement”.
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