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As the regulatory body for education professionals in Wales, we now have over 78,000 registrants, covering school teachers, further education lecturers, school and FE support staff, youth workers and youth support workers and work-based learning practitioners.
The EWC Register of practitioners holds a lot of unique data about the education workforce in Wales.
- Annual Education Workforce Statistics
- Education workforce survey
- Initial teacher education student results
- School teachers
- QTS, NQTs and Induction
- Leadership and NPQH
- Supply
- Further education teachers
- Work-based learning practitioners
- Youth worker and youth support workers
- Annual Education Workforce Statistics
- Education workforce survey
- Initial teacher education student results
- School teachers
- QTS, NQTs and Induction
- Leadership and NPQH
- Supply
- Further education teachers
- Work-based learning practitioners
- Youth worker and youth support workers
Annual Education Workforce Statistics
EWC Annual Education Workforce Statistics for Wales 2021
Key findings
Every year we publish a detailed breakdown of the education workforce in Wales. This covers a wide range of practitioners across the seven groups we register. They are:
- teachers and learning support staff in school and further education (FE) settings;
- qualified youth workers and youth support workers; and
- work-based learning (WBL) practitioners.
The statistics we produce come from our Register of Education Practitioners (the Register). The real-time Register provides detailed and comprehensive data on all registered groups.
As at 1 March 2021, there are 78,626 individuals registered with us.
How is our data different?
The data we provide is unique and is not available through any other organisation or body. For that reason, it should not be compared with other sources like the Welsh Government’s school workforce annual census (SWAC).
Our statistics differ in that we report on the whole education workforce in Wales. For the school sector in particular, unlike the SWAC, our data is more comprehensive. This is because it includes all supply teachers, peripatetic workers, freelance workers and others providing education or training in a range of education settings. We also hold significant historic data – in the case of teachers, this is 20 years. This enables us to provide extensive trend information.
We calculate the percentages quoted on ethnicity, national identity and Welsh language from the total number of registrants. This includes those where the value is unknown. The percentage of ‘unknowns’ in each area is noted for completeness.
Note: To establish the Register for each group we worked with employers, the initial en masse registration required minimal data. Practitioners have further populated their records, and continue to do so, with new registrants providing full information. The newer registrant groups are:
- further education teachers (joined in 2015)
- school and further education learning support workers (joined in 2016)
- work-based learning practitioners, youth workers and youth support workers (joined in 2017).
Work is ongoing to continue to populate records of the newer registrant groups.
School teacher
The number of registered school teachers has continued to fall year on year. Between 2011 and 2021, the numbers dropped by 10.3% (38,770 in 2011; 34,766 in 2021).
The majority are female (75.7%). There has been a gradual decrease in the proportion of male teachers from 28.1% in 2002 to 24.3% in 2021.
The age profile of school teachers remains balanced, with 48.3% under the age of 40 and 29.7% aged between 40 and 50. There has been a slight increase in the under 25 age group (5.5% in 2021 compared to 3.6% in 2020), partly due to a rise in those entering Initial teacher education.
1.3% of school teachers declared themselves as either Black, Asian or a minority ethnicity (BAME), and 91.6% White. (5.7% unknown).
63.0% declared their national identity as Welsh, and 22.8% as British. (5.4% unknown).
The trend of Welsh speaking school teachers (33.5%), or those who are able to work through the medium of Welsh (27.1%) has remained fairly static, with little variance year on year. (3.5% unknown in both). Around 20% of school teachers are employed in Welsh-medium schools.
In Wales, qualified teacher status is non age range or subject specific. Of the secondary school teachers that teach English, Mathematics or Welsh, 73.9%, 77.0% and 72.2% respectively are trained in the subject they teach. In the foundation subjects, around 80% of secondary practitioners are trained in the subjects they teach, except for Information Technology (42.2%).
School learning support workers
The number of registered school learning support workers has increased by 15.7% since 2017 to 38,668 in 2021.
A higher proportion (86.3%) are female in comparison to the other registration groups. The next highest is school teachers.
17.6% are under 25 years of age. This is considerably higher than school teachers, with 5.5% falling within this age range.
3.2% have declared their ethnicity as Black, Asian or a minority ethnicity, and 64.6% as White. In respect of national identity, 40.7% of school learning support workers identify as Welsh. (31.1 % unknown in both).
19.7% are able to speak Welsh and 16.7% have declared that they are able to work through the medium of Welsh. (31.1% and 31.4% unknown)
FE teacher
The number of FE teachers has increased since they first joined the register. However, this number fell by 2.2% to 6,605 between 2020 and 2021.
The gender split is more balanced than the other registrant groups: 59.6% are female, and 40.4% are male.
The FE workforce is older than the school workforce. 42.4% are aged 50 and over in comparison to 22.1% of school teachers and 36.9% of WBL practitioners.
74.2% of FE teachers declared their ethnicity as White. In respect of national identity, 43.9% identified as Welsh and 24.6% identified as British (20.2% unknown in both).
16.4% are fluent or fairly fluent Welsh speakers and 11.7% are able to work through the medium of Welsh. (20.3% unknown in both)
The highest proportion of FE teachers trained in the subject they teach are those teaching Religious Studies and History. 40% of these have qualifications in those subjects.
83.8% of FE teacher records include qualification information (16.2% are unknown). Of those practitioners, 73.8% have recorded a qualification at level 6 or above.
FE learning support workers
The number registered in the FE learning support worker category has increased since they first registered in 2017. It then fell by 3.0% between 2020 and 2021 to 5,243.
The majority of FE learning support workers are female (69.0%).
FE learning support workers are a younger workforce than FE teachers in that 65.8% are aged under 50 compared with 57.6% of FE teachers. 20.6% of FE learning support workers are aged under 30.
4.2% have declared their ethnicity as either Black, Asian or a minority ethnicity, and 77.7% as White.
In respect of national identity, 44.9% identified as Welsh and 26.1% as British. (15.9% and 15.8 % unknown).
15.2% are able to speak Welsh and 10.7% have declared that they are able to work through the medium of Welsh. (16.2% and 16.1% unknown).
WBL practitioner
The number registered in the WBL category has increased since 2018. However, between 2020 and 2021 there has been a decrease of 6.2% to 3,321 in 2021.
63.2% of WBL practitioners are female and 36.8% are male.
WBL practitioners have a more even distribution in age range with 10.6% under the age of 30, 10.3% aged 60 and over and the other age categories (30 to 39, 40 to 49 and 50 to 59) around 26% each.
1.6% of WBL practitioners have declared their ethnicity as either Black, Asian or a minority ethnicity and 76.5% as White. This is similar to other registration categories. Welsh is the most popular declaration in relation to national identity with 45.5% (19.8% and 20.0% unknown).
13.1% of WBL practitioners who have made a declaration said that they are able to speak Welsh and 9.4% are able to work through the medium of Welsh. (18.6% and 18.8% unknown)
40.7% of WBL practitioners employed in a WBL establishment have their subject information populated. Of those recorded, the most taught subjects are Health and Social Care (13.3%), Business (13.8%), Skills for Work (14.2%).
71.3% of WBL practitioner records include qualification information. Of those, 47.6% have a qualification at level 5 or above.
Qualified youth workers and youth support workers
Youth workers and youth support workers are eligible to register with the EWC if they hold one of the mandatory qualifications listed in the Regulations. See ‘Applying for Registration’. The numbers registered in the youth work sector has been relatively stable since 2018.
Like the other registration categories, the youth work sector is mostly female: 67.2% of youth workers and 66.1% of youth support workers.
The age profile of youth workers and youth support workers is balanced, with 21.9% and 18.8% respectively aged 50 and over.
3.1% of youth workers and 2.4% of youth support workers have declared their ethnicity as either Black, Asian or a minority ethnicity and 67.9% and 68.5% respectively as White. (27.7% and 27.0% unknown).
44.3% and 49.7% respectively have declared their national identity as Welsh, and 19.9% and 16.5% as British. (27.7% and 27.0% unknown).
4.6% of qualified youth workers and 6.1% of qualified youth support worker declared that they have a disability.
10.6% of youth workers are able to speak Welsh and 7.4% have declared that they are able to work through the medium of Welsh (26.1% and 26.6% unknown).
16.3% of youth support workers are able to speak Welsh and 12.4% have declared that they are able to work through the medium of Welsh (27.3% and 27.4% unknown).
Previous years workforce statistics
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