The EIS, Scotland’s largest teaching union, has opened a consultation with members over a revised, final pay offer from local authority employers.

After a special meeting of the EIS salaries committee today, the union is recommending that its members accept the two-year pay offer.

The offer is for a two-year pay settlement, running from 1 August 2025 to 31 July 2027.

It comprises:

• A 4 per cent uplift on all pay scale points from 1 August 2025, rising to 4.25 per cent from 1 April 2026.
• A 3.25 per cent uplift on all pay scale points from 1 August 2026 to 31 July 2027.
• A commitment to negotiate a “reopener clause” for year two, to build in inflation protection.

EIS general secretary Andrea Bradley said: “Today’s special meeting of the EIS salaries committee took a unanimous decision to recommend acceptance of this offer to our members. Accordingly, the EIS has now opened a consultation with members on this revised offer, and is recommending to members that they confirm their willingness to accept the offer.

“The salaries committee believes that this is the best pay offer that can be achieved in the current circumstances, and that there is no prospect of this offer being further improved through negotiation.”

The EIS online consultation on the pay offer opens today and will close after the weekend, on Monday 10 November.

Prospect of pay rises before Christmas

Ms Bradley added: “It has been a lengthy process to bring us to this point, with teachers having been due to receive a pay increase in August. Our branches across Scotland have indicated to us that they are keen to see the matter of pay resolved as quickly as possible, to allow all members to receive their pay rise without further delay.

“With this in mind, we have opened an expedited consultation process today so that we can move to conclude this process in the near future. The EIS wants teachers to receive their overdue and well-deserved pay increase and, should EIS members indicate their willingness to accept the offer, we would urge all local authorities to act quickly to ensure that all of Scotland’s teachers receive the boost to their pay packets before Christmas.”

Ms Bradley said that there could be “no more delay on the delivery of a pay settlement for all of Scotland’s teachers for this year”, but that the EIS would “continue to press employers and government to agree an acceptable way forward on full restoration of the real-terms value of teachers’ pay, after the losses incurred as a result of austerity-driven approaches to public sector pay”.

In a separate development last month, the EIS salaries committee opened the way for a statutory ballot on industrial action, in response to “ongoing lack of progress” in the Scottish government policy to reduce teachers’ maximum class-contact time by 90 minutes a week.

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