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Headteachers’ leaders have said it is “intensely frustrating” that an announcement on teacher pay has been “knocked off course” by political events.

The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) has raised concerns after Sir Keir Starmer announced he was resigning as prime minister today, following weeks of uncertainty about his future.

The government is yet to announce the pay rise teachers and leaders will receive from September, despite there being less than a month left in the current academic year.

ASCL general secretary Pepe Di’Iasio warned that the government was in danger of “drifting back to the bad old days of 11th-hour decisions which arrive far too late in the school year to allow for any degree of forward planning”.

And the NASUWT teaching union warned that this wait for an announcement is creating uncertainty for teachers and “undermining” schools’ ability to set budgets and plan for the next academic year.

The Department for Education previously proposed, in its written evidence to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB), that teachers’ pay should rise by 6.5 per cent over the three academic years from 2026-27 to 2028-29.

The DfE received the STRB’s recommendation for the teachers’ pay award in April, but has yet to publish its response.

Teachers received a 4 per cent pay rise in 2025-26, announced at the end of May last year.

Political delays

Mr Di’Iasio said his union understood that the announcement on the pay award was first delayed due to the local elections across the country in May, and then, more recently, due to the Makerfield by-election.

“We’re concerned that it may be further delayed following the resignation of the prime minister, and we’ll be seeking urgent clarification,” he said.

Sir Keir announced earlier today that he will resign as prime minister less than two years after coming to power.

Labour’s Andy Burnham, who won the Makerfield by-election last Thursday, appears on course to enter 10 Downing Street within weeks.

Mr Di’Iasio said the government was right to ask the STRB to provide a multi-year pay recommendation to give schools greater budget certainty.

But, he added, decisions taken late in the school year “make the process of setting budgets little more than guesswork”.

Matt Wrack, general secretary of the NASUWT, said the union hopes the delay stems from the government rethinking its three-year proposal.

The union previously warned that the suggested three-year pay deal would “hit morale, damage recruitment and retention, put unsustainable pressure on school budgets and lead to cuts and redundancies”.

“We continue to call on the government to deliver fully funded above-inflation pay awards in each year of this Parliament, to restore the real-terms value of teacher pay and to recognise that investment in teachers is essential to achieving ministers’ education priorities,” Mr Wrack said.

Industrial action threatened

In the run-up to this year’s pay decision, teaching unions warned that a below-inflation offer that was not fully funded could lead to industrial action.

The NEU teaching union announced it will launch a formal ballot for industrial action unless the government makes a fully funded above-inflation pay offer.

Last month, the annual conference of the NAHT school leaders’ union voted in favour of a motion calling for “all steps necessary, up to and including industrial action” towards a fully funded inflation-plus pay award.

Reports last month suggested that the government would offer a pay deal below inflation, and that it would not be fully funded.

The Bank of England said in April that UK inflation could peak at 3.6 or 3.7 per cent by the end of this year due to the war in Iran, and could reach 6 per cent next year in the worst-case scenario.

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