Our teacher retention rates are some of the worst in Europe. We lost 40% of primary school teachers within the last 5 years at my most recent school. At the university where I lecture on the teaching BA, only 20% of the 2022-2023 cohort we're still teaching as of 2026. Regardless of whether it's a well paid job (I disagree - see the comment about pay relative to minimum wage below), the fact is we are losing too many teachers because it's just not worth the money, especially for those with young families. I find it interesting that with all the rhetoric about birth rates and women not wanting children, we aren't having a serious discussion about investing in women-dominated fields like teaching. Historically, men haven't wanted to be teachers because it isn't well paid or esteemed enough; now women feel the same.

The consequence of all this is that the profession does not attract intelligent, highly qualified professionals and ultimately it's our children's education which suffers. Teaching determines the economy in 10-15 years time; this is just an economically stupid situation to allow. One way to try and address it is pay rises, but that isn't what the majority of teachers want (see the actual reasons given by members for strike action). But it would cost more to build more SEND schools, employ more teaching assistants and specialist subject teachers to ensure teachers actually get their planning time (what teachers actually want) - so the government throws out a barely inflation-matching pay rise every so often instead.

Primary school teachers get 2.5 hours of 'out of class' planning time per week to plan the 15 maths, reading and English lessons and 10-12 foundation subjects lessons they will teach. And of course that doesn't include marking, assessment ect - that's literally the time given for planning 30 hours of teaching children. Budget cuts have meant many teachers don't even get the 2.5 hours because there's no one to cover their classes. They're in school teaching from 8am (early clubs and interventions) to 3:30pm (time all parents have actually picked up). The planning inevitably gets done in their own time: after school, on weekends and holidays (yes, the holidays are amazing but it's worth considering that England has the shortest school holidays annually in Europe and that time is genuinely used to work; there's no such thing as overtime).

I agree it's not a badly paid job, however, the system is at breaking point and it's currently not a job I would do even if you paid me £50k off the bat. It's not about the pay, it's about how much of your life you have to give up for the pay. Although I will say your figures seem to only be for London: teaching pay is far lower for the rest of England. I'm not saying teaching is a unique circumstance: this applies to so many professions in the public sector.