Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress her Department has made on recruiting 6,500 new expert teachers in key subjects.

The department has now achieved over 60% of our target to recruit 6,500 additional expert teachers by the end of this Parliament. There are 3,992 more expert teachers in secondary and special schools and colleges than in 2023/24.

The latest data shows that, in 2024/25, there were 2,346 more teachers in secondary and special schools and 1,646 more teachers in the statutory further education sector.

Additionally, our pipeline for school teachers is also growing, with 32,576 new entrants to initial teacher training in autumn 2025, up 13% from the previous year, and STEM entrants were up 22% compared to last year. This is also the first time the overall STEM target has been met since comparable statistics began in 2012/13.

Despite this great progress, we know there is more to do, and we are working at pace to deliver on our pledge. In February, alongside the Schools White Paper, we published our delivery plan setting out our planned interventions to attract, retain and develop more teachers. The delivery plan is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/every-child-achieving-and-thriving/6500-additional-teachers-delivery-plan-html-version.