Teaching workforce expands

New figures from the Department for Children, Schools and Families have shown there are 20,100 more teaching and support staff than last year.

The government has hailed the figures as showing that numbers employed in education continues to rise, which may be of note to those seeking teaching vacancies.

Overall, the school workforce now totals 767,600, with 441,200 holding teacher jobs and 176,900 working as teaching assistants.

The increase has meant that the pupil-teacher ratio has fallen, from 21.8 pupils for every staff member to 21.6 in primary schools and 16.5 to 16.1 in secondaries.

Jim Knight, schools minister, commented: "We've freed up teachers from administration tasks to do what they do best - teaching and giving pupils more individual attention.

"The result is almost 41,000 more teachers in our schools in the last decade and buoyant recruitment."

However, the BBC has obtained figures which show that the number of vacant teaching jobs has increased by almost a quarter in the past 12 months, with 4,850 positions now available.