Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the number of early years workers who have left the sector compared to the number of new joiners in each of the past five years.

The department has published figures on the total number of paid staff working in childcare and early years provision in the ‘childcare and early years providers survey: 2021’. This report shows that the total number of paid staff working in childcare and early years provision in 2021 was estimated at 328,500. This figure is somewhat lower than in 2019 (344,100) but in line with the estimates for 2018 (331,400). 2018 is the earliest year for which comparable data are available. No comparable data was collected in 2020 because of reprioritisation as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.

The average (mean) number of paid staff per early years setting remained similar in 2021 compared with 2019 for all provider types.

We have commissioned qualitative interviews on the theme of early years workforce, including questions about joiners and leavers, and a survey on the impact that COVID-19 is currently having on early years workforce issues. We expect these pieces of research to be published in spring 2022.