Teachers ‘united in outrage’ vote to reject pay offer by 98%

An “insulting” pay rise offer of 4.3% has been rejected by the National Education Union (NEU), with further industrial action now being planned for Thursday 27 April and Tuesday 2 May.

In the ballot, 98% of NEU members (the UK’s largest education union) voted to reject the deal after the teaching profession was “united in outrage” by the offer.

As well as the 4.3% pay rise planned for next year, the deal included £1,000 being paid to teachers this year and starting salaries being raised from £28,000 to £30,000 in September.

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said the NEU’s decision to reject the pay offer “will simply result in more disruption for children and less money for teachers today.”

The Boar spoke to an NEU member, aged 45, who said she had rejected the offer because it was “not fully funded” by the Department of Education.

“It has to come out of existing school budgets, which are already stretched beyond what’s manageable.”

NEU analysis shows up to 58% of schools would need to make cuts to afford the staff pay rise.

Official guidance is that schools should spend around 70-75% of their budget on salaries. Some are spending more than 80%, which would increase if the pay rise offer had been accepted.

[the pay offer] compares very unfavourably with the deal offered to our Scottish colleagues

–Anonymous NEU Member

Following the offer being rejected, pay will now be decided by an independent pay review body and teachers will not receive the one-off payment of £1,000.

One NEU member told The Boar the pay offer “compares very unfavourably with the deal offered to our Scottish colleagues”. Scotland has fully funded a 12.5% pay rise for teachers over two years and Wales has promised an 11.5% pay rise, substantially larger than what is being promised to teachers in England.

She also explained teachers already work overtime for free, are not guaranteed lunch breaks, and have to spend their own money on classroom supplies due to a lack of central government funding.

Between 2010 and 2022, teacher’s salaries fell by an average of 11% and it has been one of the professions worst affected by the public sector pay freeze.