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 \nPage 2  \nContents  \nIntroduction 3 Key findings and recommendations 4 Policy context 7 The school support staff workforce 8 SEND as a driver of demand 11 Shortages 12 Retention 13 Reasons support staff consider leaving 14 Career progression 15 Working hours 16  \nPay 18  \nConclusions and recommendations 22  \nReferences 25  \nThe Nuffield Foundation is an independent charitable trust with a mission to advance social well-being. It funds and undertakes rigorous research, encourages innovation and supports the use of sound evidence to inform social and economic policy, and improve people’s lives. The Nuffield Foundation is the founder and co-funder of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, the Ada Lovelace Institute and the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory. This project has been funded by the Nuffield Foundation, but the views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily the [Foundation. Find out more at: nuffieldfoundation.org](Foundation. Find out more at: nuffieldfoundation.org).  \n[Bluesky: @nuffieldfoundation.org](Bluesky: @nuffieldfoundation.org)  \nLinkedIn: Nuffield Foundation  \nAcknowledgements  \nWe are grateful to Sarah Tang and Juan Manuel Del Pozo Segura for the analysis they did for this project and to Jude Hillary and Dan Keel for their helpful comments on early drafts. We would also like representatives from various organisations for their thoughtful insights and feedback on this report.  \nSome of this work was undertaken in the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Secure Research Service (SRS) using data from ONS and other owners and does not imply the endorsement of the ONS or other data owners.  \nPage 3  \nIntroduction  \nSupport staff make up more than half of the school workforce in England, yet compared to teachers relatively little research has been done into the labour force dynamics of this diverse group. NFER is seeking to address that gap with a series of annual workforce reports looking at school support staff.  \nSupport staff play an important role in enabling schools to provide a high-quality education. For example, in a 2023 survey, 95 per cent of school leaders said teaching assistants (TAs) have a positive impact on their schools’ ability to improve academic outcomes for pupils while 92 per cent said they improve pupil behaviour and engagement (CFE Research, 2024) . Of course, support staff includes other types of workers: administrators, auxiliary staff, technicians, school business professionals and various other categories of support staff also make essential contributions to school life.  \nThe aim of the National Foundation for Educational Research’s (NFER) annual series of reports on the education workforce, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, is to monitor progress towards meeting workforce supply challenges. This report summarisesthe latest research and key trends in support staff numbers, recruitment, retention, pay and working conditions and exploreshow policy changes may affect these trends and challenges, where they exist.  \nIn this first report, we look at support staff as a whole – seethe methodology for precise definitions and how they differ in each dataset, We also focus on TAs as part of the wider group. This choice partially reflects the data available. In future reports, we will develop this analysis further to look more specifically at the different parts of the support staff workforce, where data allows.  \nDfE collects less data through the School Workforce Census (SWC) on support staff than it does for teachers, but the data that is collected allows us to look at how support staff numbers have changed over time and trends in support staff retention.  \nFor this report, we have also utilised data from various surveys:  \n1. To measure how easy or difficult schools find the recruitment of support staff, we surveyed school leaders in autumn term 2025, and compared their responses ","cbCaieDYsVL3EPKE","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaieDYsVL3EPKE","pdf",2809198,26,"English","# Introduction\n# Key findings and recommendations\n# Policy context\n# The school support staff workforce\n# SEND as a driver of demand\n# Shortages\n# Retention\n# Reasons support staff consider leaving\n# Career progression\n# Working hours\n# Pay\n# Conclusions and recommendations\n# References","[{\"question\":\"What is the focus of the annual report on the school support staff workforce?\",\"answer\":\"The report reviews the latest research and key trends in support staff numbers, recruitment, retention, pay, and working conditions, with a particular emphasis on teaching assistants (TAs).\"},{\"question\":\"How does SEND relate to demand for teaching assistants?\",\"answer\":\"The report finds evidence that SEND needs can drive demand for TAs, but the relationship is not particularly strong, and other factors are also involved.\"},{\"question\":\"What recruitment and shortage challenges does the report highlight?\",\"answer\":\"It reports that although there has been some improvement since 2023, three in four school leaders surveyed found it difficult to recruit TAs in 2025, and it notes that experimental evidence suggests exit rates are trending upwards.\"}]","The School Support Staff Workforce in England - Annual Report 2026 | PDF",1792057338,66]