Commenting on a new report from EPI looking at teacher pensions, salaries and retention, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said: “We have seen repeated attempts to chip away at pensions in order to try and solve over a decade of pay erosion. This isn’t right. Pensions represent salary deferred as a long-term investment to provide future security. Insufficient pay in the teaching profession should not be resolved by trading future pension income and security in favour of current income.

“The solution to teacher and leader supply does not lie in changes to the current pension arrangements. What’s needed is a reversal of the pay erosion that occurred by design between 2010 and 2024. Even after this year’s welcome above inflation uplift, leaders real pay remains between 16% and 17% lower in real terms than 2010, when measured against CPI inflation.”