What steps her Department is taking to help further education colleges recruit vocational teachers from industry.

The department recognises that industry experience is vital in the high quality teaching of vocational and technical education.

The national further education teacher recruitment campaign, “Share Your Skills”, targets those with industry skills to think about a career in FE teaching. Through Taking Teaching Further (TTF), a two-year programme that supports FE providers to recruit and provide early career support to those with industry knowledge and experience, we are supporting colleges to equip new teachers with the skills they need. In addition the Teacher Mentoring Programme is helping to improve retention of early career teachers providing mentoring and wellbeing support.

We are delivering payments worth up to £6,000 after tax to eligible early career teachers in key STEM and technical subjects in FE colleges, which could include those transitioning to teaching from industry. Furthermore, we continue to offer financial incentives for those undertaking teacher training for the FE sector in priority subject areas. For the academic year 2024 to 2025, training bursaries are worth up to £30,000 each, tax free.