Exit rates for school support staff have reached record levels, according to research.

The annual rate of support staff leaving is now the highest since 2011-12, when this data was first collected, according to a report by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER).

Most school leaders are also struggling to recruit teaching assistants, with concerns that recruitment is worse than it is for teachers.

Yet, overall, support staff numbers continue to grow - driven by rises in secondary and special schools, with primary school numbers “largely flat” - which underlines the high degree of churn in the workforce.

However, the Department for Education still does not systematically track TA and support staff shortages.

The NFER findings have arrived after recent government research highlighted concerns about the recruitment and retention of support staff.

Support staff include TAs, but also staff working in non-teaching roles, such as pastoral support, lunch and breaktime supervisors, administrative roles and catering staff.

‘Significant difficulties’ in TA recruitment

The NFER study, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, finds that, in recent years, “schools have reported significant difficulties in recruiting support staff, particularly TAs”.

Support staff make up more than half of the school workforce, and this continues to grow year on year.

The NFER says this is largely a result of increasing numbers of secondary school students and rising demand for special educational needs and disabilities support.

However, the study warns that around one in five support staff left the school system between 2023-24 and 2024-25, meaning exit rates have now reached the highest level since the data was first published in 2011-12.

The most common reason for support staff leaving is not feeling valued, the NFER says. Low staff morale, lack of staffing, lack of career progression and financial reasons were other common factors.

The NFER also surveyed 338 primary and secondary school leaders in autumn 2025 to see how recruitment challenges have changed.

Some 74 per cent of teachers reported difficulties in hiring support staff. However, this is an improvement on 2023, when 84 per cent reported difficulties.

Recruiting other types of support staff was viewed as slightly less challenging (60 per cent), a considerable decrease from two years ago (80 per cent).

‘Critical’ to improve support staff recruitment

Jack Worth, education workforce lead at the NFER, said it was “critical that the government tackles the growing challenges around recruitment and retention”.

He added: “Schools can also help strengthen this by considering steps to ensure support staff feel recognised and valued.”

Tes previously revealed that Labour was planning to re-establish a School Support Staff Negotiating Body SSSNB).

The government has committed to reinstating the SSSNB to create a separate pay award for support staff in schools. However, it is not expected to make a recommendation on pay until 2027-28.

The NFER recommends that both the government and SSSNB should strongly consider whether low pay levels are driving the recruitment and retention challenges identified in the report, and what can be done to improve career progression opportunities.

The report also calls for DfE to improve the coverage and availability of the data it collects on support staff.

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