Postgraduate teacher training recruitment against target, England
Official statistics
New entrants to postgraduate initial teacher training in England as a percentage of the Department for Education's recruitment target, for primary, secondary and both together, each year since 2019/20, from its Initial Teacher Training Census.
Recruitment target achieved, primary and secondary
100%
2025/26 · 26,989 postgraduates in scope against a target of 26,920; provisional
Verified against source, 8 November 2026, 13:20 UTC- Primary and secondary
- Primary
- Secondary
Source: Department for Education. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Data table
7 rows
| Category | Primary and secondary | Primary | Secondary |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019/20 | 87.0% | 93.0% | 83.0% |
| 2020/21 | 109% | 123% | 101% |
| 2021/22 | 96.0% | 130% | 78.0% |
| 2022/23 | 70.0% | 91.0% | 57.0% |
| 2023/24 | 60.0% | 94.0% | 48.0% |
| 2024/25 | 69.0% | 90.0% | 61.0% |
| 2025/26 | 100% | 128% | 89.0% |
Source and licence
- Publisher
- Department for Education
- Check it yourself
- https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/initial-teacher-training-census
- Licence
- Open Government Licence v3.0 – Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Retrieved
- 8 November 2026, 13:09 UTC
- Raw files fetched
- https://content.explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/api/data-set-files?publicationId=465d5a87-dba8-49ee-b7e3-08d86b7beb8f&latestOnly=true&pageSize=40&page=1SHA-256 bf9546763de56d74efca6fc2220fe213a8467e81282c224f2bc3a1800ff4925d · 14,949 bytes
- https://content.explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/api/releases/2fe4c0dd-4bef-43a1-8730-602d7029a4bb/files?fileIds=c5bcb0bd-314e-4027-974e-08de5f2b2e9bSHA-256 38f98250f49c7d85990e09203ea4fd24ae1f00842ccc682498c1c3b2f3a038fb · 5,361 bytes
Verification
Verified against source, 8 November 2026, 13:20 UTC Run at 8 November 2026, 13:20 UTC; 21 of 21 figures matched the live source.
| Result | Check | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Pass | Provenance recorded | Department for Education; Open Government Licence v3.0; retrieved 2026-11-08T13:09:13Z; 2 raw file(s) |
| Pass | Raw files match recorded SHA-256 | 2 of 2 files intact |
| Pass | Re-parsing raw files reproduces figures | 21 of 21 figures and the headline reproduced; the meta's entrants and targets and postgraduates match |
| Pass | Figures are finite numbers | 21 figures, 0 invalid |
| Pass | Live source matches every figure | 21 of 21 figures match exactly after downloading 2 source file(s) again (1 byte-identical); the headline matches; the meta's entrants and targets and postgraduates match |
| Pass | EES file is current | the latest period, 2025/26, ended on 2026-08-31, 69 days before retrieval (limit 190), from Academic year 2025/26 |
| Pass | The release's key statistics agree | 6 of 6 cases of the release page's key statistics (https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/initial-teacher-training-census/2025-26), for 2025/26 and 2024/25, are the files' figures |
| Pass | Primary and secondary add up to the total | 21 of 21 cases of the years' postgraduates in scope, targets and postgraduates for primary and secondary add up to the total |
| Pass | The secondary subjects add up to secondary | 21 of 21 cases of the years' secondary subjects add up to secondary |
| Pass | The STEM subjects add up | 21 of 21 cases of the years' biology, chemistry, computing, mathematics and physics add up to the STEM subjects, 1 of them by the publisher's known difference: 2024/25, targets (+20) |
| Pass | Each percentage is its entrants against its target | 154 of 154 cases of the DfE's percentages of target achieved, rounded to whole points, are its postgraduates in scope against its target within 0.5 (4 exactly) |
| Pass | Source page answers | https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/initial-teacher-training-census – HTTP 200 |
Notes
- New entrants to postgraduate initial teacher training in England each recruitment year as a percentage of the Department for Education's recruitment target, for primary, secondary and both together, as Table 1.2 of its Initial Teacher Training Census gives it. The percentage is the DfE's own: the postgraduates in scope of the target against the target its Teacher Workforce Model set.
- The target changes each year, so the percentage moves with the target as well as with the number of trainees. From 2025/26 the targets and the trainees in scope of them include self-funded trainees, which they left out before. The latest year is provisional and earlier years are revised; Troops to Teachers trainees are left out before 2021/22, and forecast trainees are not counted from 2021/22.