Our Supply Teacher Index has now received its first 200 submissions in stealth mode,  before we have even formally launched it.

We created the Index to start building a clearer picture of what supply teaching actually looks like: not just advertised rates, but what teachers report being paid, how they are employed and what happens around pensions, travel, Agency Worker Rights (AWR) and longer-term work.

For years, one of the most common questions teachers have asked us is deceptively simple:

How Much Should I Be Getting Paid As A Supply Teacher?

There are official pay scales, calculations and regulations that help answer part of that question. But they don’t necessarily tell us what supply teachers are actually experiencing.

That’s why we started collecting the data ourselves.

Supply teachers anonymously tell us what they’re being paid, where they’re working, whether the assignment is day-to-day or long-term, their pension arrangements, travel, AWR, PPA and some of the other factors that can make a substantial difference to the reality of supply teaching.

Despite running quietly in the background, the Index has now reached 200 submissions.

So it feels like the right time to share what we’re beginning to see.

The Median Reported Daily Rate Is £160

The clearest starting point is pay. The median reported daily rate was £160, while the mean was approximately £167 per day. But arguably the more interesting finding is just how much rates vary. The middle 50% of reported daily rates were approximately £140 to £181. Around 42% of submissions reported £150 per day or less, while approximately one in five reported rates of £200 or more.

So although £160 gives us a useful midpoint, our early data reinforces something many supply teachers will already recognise: there isn’t really one single “supply teacher rate”.

Location, assignment length, experience, agency arrangements and the nature of the role can all potentially affect what someone receives.

This is one of the reasons we created our Supply Teacher Daily Pay Calculator alongside the Index. The calculator helps teachers estimate a daily rate based on teacher pay scales, while the Index begins to show us what people are actually reporting from the supply market.

Long-term Supply Is Reporting Higher Rates

There is already a noticeable difference between day-to-day and longer-term supply.

The median reported rate for day-to-day supply was £156, compared with £180 for long-term supply.

That difference isn’t particularly surprising. Longer-term assignments can involve considerably more responsibility, including planning, assessment, meetings and taking greater responsibility for classes.

But the additional information teachers submitted alongside their rates is potentially more interesting.

Among the 57 long-term supply records included in our cleaned dataset, 29 indicated that they were not being paid to scale when answering our question relating to Agency Worker Rights (AWR), while 27 said they had not been notified about AWR. Twenty-six also reported experiencing unpaid PPA.

These figures need treating cautiously. They are based on self-reported experiences and don’t establish whether any individual agency or school has failed to meet its obligations.

However, they do give us some useful questions to investigate as the Index grows.

Agency workers can acquire additional rights after completing a qualifying period in the same role, so this is one area where we would encourage teachers to understand the current guidance and their individual circumstances.

Flexibility Is The Biggest Attraction Of Supply Teaching

It is easy for discussions about supply teaching to focus solely on pay and employment conditions.Our early responses show another side of the picture. Nearly half of submissions, 49%,  identified flexibility as their main reason for working in supply.

That was considerably higher than any other answer.

Around 18% selected a lack of permanent opportunities, 11% workload, 7% phased retirement and 3% childcare, with the remainder giving other reasons.

That matters.

Supply teaching isn’t one homogeneous experience, and neither are the reasons people choose it.

For some teachers it may be a temporary step between permanent roles. For others it can provide a way to remain in teaching while reducing some of the commitments associated with a permanent position. For others still, it may fit around family, other work or retirement.

As the Index grows, we want to understand those different experiences much better.

Pensions May Be An Overlooked Part Of Supply Pay

One result that particularly caught our attention concerned pensions.

Around 37% of submissions said they were unsure about their pension arrangements.

Another 33% reported having a NEST workplace pension, while approximately 24% said they had opted out of making pension contributions.

Again, these results aren’t intended to represent every supply teacher in the country, but the level of uncertainty is interesting.

The Daily Rate Doesn’t Tell The Whole Story

Travel is another good example.

Almost half of the submissions in our dataset said that their travel expenses were never paid. Almost a third of teachers reported usually travelling for at least 40 minutes to work and for more than half of this group travel expenses were never covered. 

That is why comparing supply teaching purely on the basis of a daily rate can be misleading. A £170 assignment ten minutes from home can look quite different from the same £170 rate after a lengthy commute, additional fuel or public transport costs and unpaid travelling time.

As our dataset becomes larger, we should be able to start exploring these differences much more effectively.

Are Primary And Secondary Supply Teachers Paid Differently?

At this stage, primary teachers make up the majority of our Index.

Approximately 65% of the cleaned dataset came from primary teachers, compared with around 35% from secondary.

The difference in reported median pay between the two groups isn’t currently enormous.

Primary teachers reported a median daily rate of approximately £160, compared with £165 for secondary teachers.

We would be cautious about drawing any strong conclusions from this yet.

The same applies to regional comparisons.

We already have reasonable numbers of submissions from areas including London and the North West, but several regions still have relatively small samples.

Rather than publishing a league table based on small numbers, we want to allow the Index to grow before drawing conclusions about which parts of the country are paying more.

That should become much more interesting as we move towards 500 and eventually 1,000 submissions.

What Does This Tell Us About Supply Teacher Pay?

Perhaps the biggest conclusion from our first 200 submissions is that the headline daily rate is only part of the story.

Our initial data points towards considerable variation in reported pay.

It also highlights differences between day-to-day and long-term assignments, questions around AWR and PPA, uncertainty about pensions, the impact of travel and the importance of flexibility to many people choosing supply teaching.

None of this means that our first 200 submissions provide a definitive picture of supply teaching across the UK.

They don’t.

But they do give us something that has often been missing from discussions about supply teacher pay: information reported directly by the teachers doing the work.

And this is just the beginning.

Help Us Build A Clearer Picture Of Supply Teaching

The more teachers who contribute to the Supply Teacher Index, the more useful it becomes.

As the dataset grows, we will be able to examine supply teaching by region, phase, assignment type and potentially many of the other factors affecting what teachers actually take home.

If you’re currently working in supply, you can anonymously add your experience to the Those Who Can Supply Teacher Index and compare your daily rate with the emerging data.

The Index is based on voluntary, self-reported submissions. It is therefore a self-selecting sample and should not be interpreted as a nationally representative survey of the UK supply-teaching workforce. 

And if you’ve made it this far, have an apple. 🍎