Education
Teacher
Leads a classroom and helps every pupil learn
What does a teacher do?
A school teacher turns knowledge into lessons pupils can enter, practise and eventually use independently. The job includes explaining ideas, questioning, planning sequences, assessing work, establishing behaviour routines, adapting for special educational needs and noticing when a pupil may be unsafe. Primary teachers usually cover most subjects; secondary teachers specialise. In both, the class moves together while each child starts somewhere different.
Thirty pupils can hear the same sentence and construct different meanings. One is bored, another has copied without understanding and a third hides confusion behind laughter. Teaching moves between preparation and live diagnosis: you decide whether to pause, model another example, let pupils struggle productively or change the task. The lesson does not wait while you think in private.
In England, graduates usually complete school- or university-led training leading to qualified teacher status (QTS), often alongside a postgraduate certificate in education. Undergraduate and apprenticeship routes also exist. QTS is required in maintained schools; academies and independent schools have more discretion, though many expect it. Applicants normally need a degree plus specified GCSEs. A PGCE and QTS are different qualifications, and requirements elsewhere in the UK vary.
- Starting pay£33,000
- Ten years in£53,000
- IntensityHeavy
- CompetitionCompetitive
- Postgraduate trainingQTS (1 year)
Teacher salary in the UK
Teacher pay is set by statute, so the middle of this band is not an average of what employers choose to offer but the scale nearly all of them use. That is why it is narrower than almost any other career here. The lower line is a classroom teacher outside London who reaches the top of the main range and stays there. The upper line is inner London, a responsibility payment, or a move into school leadership, which about one teacher in twenty has made ten years in.
- A typical earner
- Bottom 10% up to top 10%
| When | Lowest 10% earn under | A typical earner | Top 10% earn over |
|---|---|---|---|
| On graduating | £32,000 | £33,000 | £40,000 |
| 1 year in | £34,000 | £35,000 | £42,000 |
| 2 years in | £36,000 | £37,000 | £45,000 |
| 3 years in | £38,000 | £40,000 | £48,000 |
| 4 years in | £40,000 | £43,000 | £51,000 |
| 5 years in | £42,000 | £45,000 | £55,000 |
| 6 years in | £44,000 | £47,000 | £59,000 |
| 7 years in | £45,000 | £49,000 | £62,000 |
| 8 years in | £45,000 | £51,000 | £66,000 |
| 9 years in | £45,000 | £52,000 | £69,000 |
| 10 years in | £45,000 | £53,000 | £72,000 |
The good and the bad of being a teacher
The good
A room can change its mind in front of you
A class may begin convinced that heavier objects fall faster, that every poem has one hidden answer or that a historical source is useless if it is biased. A carefully chosen question or demonstration can make the old explanation stop working. When several hands rise for reasons rather than guesses, you can see understanding being rebuilt collectively and decide immediately how far to take it.
Your subject acquires a human scale
Secondary teachers revisit a discipline through the eyes of novices: algebra becomes a sequence of decisions, a novel becomes an argument pupils can enter, and a chemical model has to explain what they can observe. Knowing where a subject becomes difficult for a particular age group is a craft beyond possessing the knowledge yourself. Primary teachers find a related satisfaction in connecting subjects and watching a child cross foundational thresholds such as reading independently.
You become part of a pupil’s dependable week
Regular contact lets you notice changes that a single test cannot show. The pupil who would not speak in September may lead a discussion in March; a form tutor may spot that lateness follows a caring responsibility rather than indifference. Teachers cannot repair every circumstance, but stable expectations, honest feedback and an adult who remembers what happened last time can make school more navigable.
The bad
One disruption changes thirty people’s lesson
Low-level talking, refusal or conflict can consume attention far beyond the pupils directly involved. You must protect learning, understand whether SEND, distress or unmet need is affecting behaviour, and still apply boundaries fairly. Even skilled teachers struggle when the wider school is inconsistent: classroom authority depends partly on systems you do not control, including corridors, sanctions, parental support and senior follow-through.
Every class generates another layer of work
A full secondary timetable can mean well over a hundred pupils whose knowledge, work and circumstances you need to distinguish. Lessons require resources before they happen and assessment afterwards; emails, reports, meetings and exam preparation accumulate around both. Reusing a plan helps only if this class is ready for it. School holidays provide recovery and preparation time, but during term the work can expand into evenings because tomorrow’s pupils arrive whether or not today’s marking is complete.
You can identify a need long before help arrives
A teacher may recognise persistent reading difficulty, anxiety, neglect, hunger or unsafe behaviour, then wait while specialist assessment or outside support is scarce. Safeguarding concerns must be reported promptly, but reporting does not give you control over the outcome. Meanwhile the pupil remains in your classroom and their peers still need teaching. The frustration is not merely emotional: unmet needs alter attendance, behaviour and learning every day.
Teacher career path
Early Career Teacher
Usually 0–2 years’ experience
You’ll carry real classes while completing England’s two-year early career teacher entitlement, with mentor support, training, progress reviews and reduced timetable time. Early progress comes through repeatable routines, accurate explanations and a realistic sense of what pupils learnt rather than what you covered; a dazzling isolated lesson matters much less.
Classroom Teacher / Form Tutor
Usually 2–5 years’ experience
You’ll plan and assess with greater independence, teach a fuller range of year groups and contribute to pastoral or extracurricular work. Secondary teachers become more fluent in examination courses and subject-specific misconceptions; primary teachers learn to hold one class’s progress across the curriculum. Reliability matters because pupils experience your practice every day, not as an occasional performance.
Subject Leader / Head of Year / Expert Classroom Teacher
Usually 5–8 years’ experience
A subject leader shapes curriculum and assessment across several teachers, while a head of year coordinates attendance, behaviour and pastoral support across a cohort. In primary schools, phase, key-stage and subject leadership are common equivalents and may sit alongside responsibility for one class. You may instead deepen your classroom practice, mentor trainees or lead a teaching method without taking line management.
Head of Department / Lead Practitioner / Assistant Headteacher
Usually 8–12 years’ experience
Department heads make decisions about curriculum, staffing, resources and examination preparation; assistant heads usually own a school-wide area such as teaching, behaviour or inclusion. A lead practitioner can follow a senior specialist route through coaching, demonstration and curriculum design. At this stage, improving other classrooms without imposing a script becomes more important than perfecting only your own.
Deputy Headteacher / Headteacher / Senior Teaching Specialist
Usually 12+ years’ experience
Senior leaders become accountable for culture, safeguarding, staff workload, budgets and educational standards across a school, and headteachers answer to governors or a trust board. Further leadership may span several schools. A senior specialist may instead shape curriculum or teacher development across a trust, training organisation or subject association. At this level, a timetable, behaviour policy or staffing decision can shape hundreds of classroom choices before a senior leader enters the room.
What degree do you need to be a teacher?
These degrees provide the disciplinary knowledge behind many secondary subjects: close reading, argument, evidence, cultural context and language. Graduates must still break expert habits into teachable steps, master the school curriculum beyond their preferred period or genre, and learn how to assess pupils who express understanding in very different ways.
Develops logical reasoning, modelling, experimentation and confidence with technical content, often in subjects where specialist teachers are difficult to recruit. Training must add knowledge of common misconceptions, practical safety and explanations that do not skip the steps a graduate now performs automatically. Subject knowledge enhancement may bridge a related degree into the chosen subject.
Offers an early grounding in child development, curriculum, assessment and classroom experience; some undergraduate courses lead directly to QTS. Graduates must check the qualification attached to the course and continue building subject knowledge. For secondary teaching, an education degree alone may not demonstrate enough depth in the subject to be taught.
Practical and creative disciplines bring making, performance, critique and embodied learning into school. New teachers need to manage equipment, space, safety and pupils’ reluctance to perform publicly, while turning apparently subjective work into fair assessment. They may also need to defend curriculum time when examination priorities narrow what a school offers.
These subjects can support secondary teaching in economics, business, politics, psychology, sociology, citizenship or related courses. School subjects do not map neatly onto university departments, so graduates may need additional content and familiarity with unfamiliar specifications. Strong argument must also become an explanation accessible before pupils know the specialist vocabulary.
Teachers arrive from engineering, healthcare and many unrelated degrees, sometimes after another career. Professional experience can provide strong examples and calm authority, but expertise with adults does not automatically transfer to teaching children. Secondary entrants must evidence sufficient knowledge of their subject; primary entrants need confidence across a much broader curriculum.
Hover a subject to see why it helpsTap a subject to see why it helps
A day in the life of a teacher
08:00 – 08:30Prepare what pupils will touch
You check the trays for a Year 9 experiment on reaction rates, confirm concentrations and safety precautions, and run the demonstration once. The class plan compares equal masses of marble chips in different sizes. A quick test reveals that one measuring cylinder is badly marked, so it is replaced before inaccurate equipment produces a misleading result.
Your tutor group arrives with notices, missing ties and unfinished homework. One usually talkative pupil is silent and asks to speak later. You agree a specific time rather than pressing in front of friends, then check an absence message and make sure another pupil knows where to go for a supported start to the day.
The first Year 9 class answers a diagnostic question before the practical. Many predict that smaller chips react more slowly because each piece contains less material. You replace part of the planned explanation with a drawing of the total exposed surface, then collect one sentence from every pupil before equipment comes out. In the following Year 11 lesson, short exam responses reveal a different problem: pupils can describe a graph but not connect its shape to particles colliding.
You begin altering the afternoon lesson so the second Year 9 class confronts the same misconception earlier. The pupil from registration then arrives and describes threatening messages from an older child. You listen, avoid promising secrecy, record their words accurately and take the concern to the designated safeguarding lead. Your job is to notice and report, not conduct your own investigation. The lesson plan waits.
Staffroom sandwich.
The parallel Year 9 class studies two diagrams before predicting the practical. More pupils now distinguish the size of each chip from the total surface available for collisions, but one group removes its goggles and another pours too early. You stop those benches, reset the safety expectation and let the remaining groups continue. Later classes bring different content and behaviour; the successful adaptation is useful evidence, not a universal script.
You sample exit questions rather than awarding marks for tidy tables. Several pupils obtained poor measurements but explain the relationship correctly; two have neat results and the old misconception. Presentation is not evidence of understanding, so tomorrow’s starter will ask pupils to interpret deliberately messy data before any calculation.
The science department compares Year 11 answers from different classes. One colleague has credited the phrase “more collisions” without requiring pupils to explain why. The team agrees the missing link, adjusts the marking guidance and identifies an earlier curriculum point where particle models need strengthening. Consistency here protects pupils from being rewarded or penalised according to who marked the paper.
A small GCSE revision group attempts the graph question again. You ask one pupil to explain without the memorised sentence stem; after a pause, they use the morning’s chip comparison to connect surface area, collision frequency and the changing graph. Another pupil challenges one step, and the first corrects it. The room is almost empty when the idea finally belongs to them rather than to your slide.
What skills does a teacher need?
How many hours does a teacher work?
+11 hours compared with the average graduate profession