Disclaimer: This section is primarily for researchers, academics and journalists. For a more accessible write-up of the data, see the About page, and specifically the data overview section

The methodology of the campaign is to use 2010 as a baseline for education funding and to examine whether schools – individually and by locality – have suffered cuts in comparison to that baseline. The use of school spending power as a definition of real-terms funding allows the campaign to factor in the additional costs that schools have faced, providing a more complete picture of the pressure on school funding. For example the measure gives a more accurate reflection of the costs schools actually face for staff pay and energy costs, which have increased drastically over the last few years.

When looking at funding, we also choose to focus on the mainstream schools block rather than the core schools budget, as this includes the high needs budget. While this provides additional funds to schools overall, for any particular school it incurs additional costs. Therefore, while some claim that school funding has returned to 2010 levels in real-terms when set against inflation over that period, schools remain some way behind 2010 levels taking into account their actual costs. For 2023/24 schools were still £3.2bn short of the 2010 levels for the mainstream schools block alone. This means that the pressure on school budgets remains extremely challenging with continuing cutbacks inevitable in many settings.

In brief: how we calculate school costs and funding 

We first estimate school costs by decomposing total cost into staff costs and non-staff costs, accounting for the ways policy changes, inflation, and other price shocks have impacted these. We then estimate school funding by combining the funds from different streams including pupil premium grant funding, schools block funding, etc. This allows for an accurate picture of the cuts to school funding since the 2010-11 academic year, however the impact on individual schools may slightly vary based on staffing, resources required and other unique sources of additional costs.

School Costs

Staff Costs

Teachers

We have taken average increases in teachers’ pay for 2009-10 onwards and included a factor for pay drift from 2021-22 onwards using DfE figures[1]. Teachers pay increases at the start of each academic year; we have calculated the rate for each financial year by finding five twelves of the preceding year’s increase and seven twelfths of the current year’s increase.

We have included the impact of changes to employers’ National Insurance (NI) contributions. In April 2011, the rate was increased from 12.8 per cent to 13.8 per cent[2], we calculate this added 0.4 per cent to pay costs. In April 2012, the rebate for Contracted-Out Salary Related pensions (COSRs) was reduced from 3.7 per cent to 3.4 per cent. We estimate this added 0.1 per cent to costs. In 2016, the COSRs rebate was abolished we estimate this added 2.6 per cent to teacher costs.

We have included changes to employer contributions to the Teachers’ Pension Scheme. In September 2015, employers’ contributions were increased from 14.1 per cent to 16.4 per cent. When these changes were converted to the financial year, they added 1.3 per cent to costs in 2015-16 and 1 per cent in 2016-17. In September 2019, the rate was increased to 23.6 per cent. This added 4.2 per cent to teacher costs in 2019-20 and 3 per cent in 2020-21.

We have included the introduction of Health and Social Care Levy in April 2022 and its abolition in November 2022. This added 0.4 per cent[3] to the pay bill in 2022-23 and reduced it by the same amount in 2023-24.

YearPay award (AY)Pay Drift (AY)Pay

(AY)

Pay

(FY)

National Insurance (FY)Pensions (FY)Health and Social Care Levy (FY)Annual change (FY)
2009-102.3%0.0%2.3%     
2010-112.3%0.0%2.3%2.3%0.0%0.0% 2.3%
2011-120.0%0.0%0.0%1.0%0.4%0.0% 1.4%
2012-130.0%0.0%0.0%0.0%0.1%0.0% 0.1%
2013-141.0%0.0%1.0%0.6%0.0%0.0% 0.5%
2014-151.0%0.0%1.0%1.0%-0.1%0.0% 0.9%
2015-161.0%0.0%1.0%1.0%0.0%1.3% 2.3%
2016-171.0%0.0%1.0%1.0%2.6%1.0% 4.6%
2017-181.2%0.0%1.2%1.1%0.0%0.0% 1.1%
2018-192.7%0.0%2.7%2.1%0.0%0.0% 2.0%
2019-202.9%0.0%2.9%2.8%0.0%4.2% 7.0%
2020-213.1%0.0%3.1%3.0%0.0%3.0% 6.1%
2021-220.0%0.2%0.2%1.4%0.0%0.0% 1.4%
2022-235.4%-0.2%5.2%3.1%0.0%0.0%0.4%3.5%
2023-246.5%0.0%6.5%6.0%0.0%0.0%-0.4%5.6%

Non-teaching staff

We have used the National Joint Council (NJC) pay awards, which cover all local authority staff. In recent years, there have been uplifts in the minimum wage that outstrip pay awards for other council workers. We made an index for school support staff pay by sending Freedom of Information requests (FOIs) to a representative sample of local authorities and then tracked the value of the pay points back to April 2015 and weighted them by the number of staff paid on each grade from the FOIs. Our results differ with the DfE analysis for the period 2018 to 2020, where they have estimated the increase in pay as 6.3 per cent over the two years; however, our analysis shows it was 7.5 per cent. The reason is that the DfE analysis only made an adjustment to pay the National Living Wage (NLW) to those grades beneath it; however, grades above the NLW also received higher awards to maintain differentials. Our estimate for the pay award for April 2022 is 8.5 per cent which is the same as the DfE’s.

We have included the impact of National Insurance changes and used the same figures as for teachers above.

We have also included the impact of changes in employer contributions to the Local Government Pension Scheme. Wherever possible we have taken these from DfE estimates.

We have also accounted for the introduction and abolition of the Health and Social Care Levy as for teachers.

YearPay award (FY)National Insurance (FY)PensionsHealth and Social Care Levy (FY)Total
2010-110.0%0.0%0.0% 0.0%
2011-120.0%0.4%0.0% 0.4%
2012-130.0%0.1%0.0% 0.1%
2013-141.0%0.0%0.0% 1.0%
2014-153.1%-0.1%0.0% 3.0%
2015-160.0%0.0%0.0% 0.0%
2016-171.4%2.6%0.0% 4.0%
2017-181.3%0.0%1.1% 2.4%
2018-193.7%0.0%-0.4% 3.3%
2019-203.7%0.0%0.2% 3.9%
2020-212.8%0.0%-0.5% 2.3%
2021-221.8%0.0%-0.3% 1.5%
2022-238.5%0.0%0.0%0.4%8.9%
2023-247.8%0.0%0.3%-0.4%7.7%

Non-Staff Costs

We have used the GDP Deflator[4] to estimate non-staff costs. The figures are taken from the Office for Budgetary Responsibility. For 2020-21 and 2021-22, we have averaged the figures for the two years to even out the actual figures of 6.3 per cent in 2020-21 and -0.7 per cent in 2021-22.

YearGDP Deflator
2010-111.9%
2011-121.7%
2012-131.9%
2013-141.9%
2014-151.2%
2015-160.7%
2016-172.3%
2017-181.6%
2018-192.1%
2019-202.4%
2020-212.3%
2021-222.3%
2022-236.7%
2023-246.1%

Energy Costs

The DfE estimate energy cost rises will add £750m[5] to school costs across 2022 and 2023. This is 0.9 per cent of core mainstream school funding[6] for 2022-23 and 2023-24.

Costs Summary

School expenditure has three main components; teachers’ pay, non-teaching staff pay and non-staff costs[7]. We used the DfE figures as they have changed over time. We have weighted the inflation due to teachers’ pay, non-teaching staff pay and non-staff costs by their share of expenditure. For the years 2017-18 and earlier, we used the shares: teachers’ pay (52%), non-teaching staff pay (28%) and non-staff costs (20%). For 2018-19 to 2019-20, we used the shares: teachers’ pay (52%), non-teaching staff pay (29%) and non-staff costs (19%). For 2020-21, we used the shares: teachers’ pay (53%), non-teaching staff pay (28%) and non-staff costs (19%). And for 2022-23 and 2023-24, we used the shares: teachers’ pay (54%), non-teaching staff pay (28%) and non-staff costs (18%).

Year

Unweighted

Costs weighted by expenditure

EnergySchools’ costs per pupil
Teachers’ payNon-teaching staff payNon-staff costsTeachers’ payNon-teaching staff payNon-staff costs
2010-112.3%0.0%1.9%1.2%0.0%0.4% 1.6%
2011-121.4%0.4%1.7%0.7%0.1%0.3% 1.2%
2012-130.1%0.1%1.9%0.0%0.0%0.4% 0.4%
2013-140.5%1.0%1.9%0.3%0.3%0.4% 0.9%
2014-150.9%3.0%1.2%0.5%0.9%0.2% 1.6%
2015-162.3%0.0%0.7%1.2%0.0%0.1% 1.4%
2016-174.6%4.0%2.3%2.4%1.1%0.5% 3.9%
2017-181.1%2.4%1.6%0.6%0.7%0.3% 1.6%
2018-192.0%3.3%2.1%1.1%1.0%0.4% 2.4%
2019-207.0%3.9%2.4%3.6%1.1%0.4% 5.2%
2020-216.1%2.3%2.3%3.2%0.6%0.4% 4.3%
2021-221.4%1.5%2.3%0.8%0.4%0.4% 1.6%
2022-233.5%8.9%6.7%1.9%2.5%1.2%0.9%6.4%
2023-245.6%7.7%6.1%3.0%2.2%1.1%0.9%7.1%

School Funding for Primary and Secondary Schools

Core Funding for Primary and Secondary

We looked at the core funding streams for mainstream schools listed below:

  • Schools Block funding;
  • Pupil Premium grant;
  • Education Services Grant for 2010-11 to 2016-17;
  • Teachers’ Pay Grant for 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21;
  • Teachers’ Employer Pension Contributions Grant for 2019-20 and 2020-21;
  • Schools’ Supplementary Grant for 2022-23;
  • Mainstream Schools’ Additional Grant for 2023-24;
  • Teachers’ Pay Additional Grant 2023-24.

School Funding

We have taken annual schools level Government data releases from 2011-12 to 2023-24 as the basis for our calculations[8].

The DfE provided a notional figure for the Schools Block in 2012-13 to demonstrate that the per pupil rate had not changed between 2012-13 and 2013-14 at either national or local authority level[9]. Consequently, we have used this figure for 2012-13. For school level allocations for 2012-13, we used the per pupil figure from 2013-14.

We estimated the size of the Schools Block in 2010-11 and 2011-12. We took the figure for total school funding for Reception to Year 11 pupils reported in School Funding Statistics[10] subtracted funding for the Pupil Premium and calculated changes in per pupil funding between 2010-11 and 2013-14. We then scaled the School Block in proportion to that change. In 2013-14 the school funding in cash terms minus the Pupil Premium was £35.9bn and in 2010-11 it was £35bn and in 2011-12 it was £35.1bn. We estimate the Schools’ Block per pupil in 2010-11 to be 97 per cent of its size in 2013-14 and for 2011-12 it was 98 per cent of 2013-14.

We have made our calculations for 18,887 schools with a full set of allocations data. This sample covers 94 per cent of schools and pupils.

We used this sample of schools to calculate changes in per pupil funding and schools’ costs to convert this into current prices.

We calculated the change in the spending power of mainstream schools by multiplying the change in real terms per pupil funding by the number of pupils in mainstream schools for school years Reception to Year 11. The total number of pupils was taken from the National Pupil Projections[11] and a Freedom of Information request[12].

Year State Mainstream Pupils From Reception to Yr11 Core Funding Per PupilCore Funding Per Pupil
(2023-24 prices)
Change In Real-Terms Per Pupil Funding
(2023-24 prices)
Change In School Spending Power
(2023-24 prices)
2010-11         6,675,373£4,545£6,600  
2011-12         6,720,978£4,627£6,639£39£0.3bn
2012-13         6,788,080£4,725£6,750£150£1.0bn
2013-14         6,853,189£4,820£6,823£223£1.5bn
2014-15         6,944,976£4,867£6,783£182£1.3bn
2015-16         7,059,227£4,879£6,708£108£0.8bn
2016-17         7,175,520£4,844£6,408-£192-£1.4bn
2017-18         7,266,791£4,787£6,234-£366-£2.7bn
2018-19         7,355,663£4,867£6,188-£412-£3.0bn
2019-20         7,426,801£5,053£6,106-£494-£3.7bn
2020-21         7,453,631£5,330£6,175-£425-£3.2bn
2021-22         7,504,857£5,468£6,235-£365-£2.7bn
2022-23         7,565,009£5,794£6,206-£394-£3.0bn
2023-24         7,538,982£6,178£6,178-£422-£3.2bn

Calculations

We calculated core school funding for the 18,887 mainstream schools (94% of mainstream schools) that had a full set of allocations data.

CPPF = Core Per Pupil Funding
SB = Schools’ Block Allocation (post-minimum funding guarantee)
ESG = Education Services Grant
PP = Pupil Premium
TPG = Teachers’ Pay Grant
TPECG = Teachers’ Pensions Employer Contributions Grant
SSG = Schools’ Supplementary Grant
MSAG = Mainstream Schools’ Additional Grant
TPAG = Teachers’ Pay Additional Grant

We have used the same schools’ costs index as for mainstream schools.

Grant Funding for Special Schools and Maintained Nursery Schools

Funding for non-mainstream schools is completely set by the local authority and there are no national statistics for the current year. We have used school accounts data which is published for the previous year, so the latest data release is for 2022-23. We have taken the figure for Grant Funding, this is all the state money allocated to a school. The funding streams include:

  • Funds Delegated By The Local Authority For Education of 2 to 15 year olds (I01)
  • Funding For Sixth Form Students (I02)
  • High Needs Top-Up Funding (I03)
  • Funding For Minority Ethnic Pupils (I04)
  • Pupil Premium (I05)
  • Other Government Grants (I06)
  • Other Grants And Payments Received (I07)
  • Pupil-Focused Extended School Funding And / Or Grants (I15)
  • Community-Focused School Funding And / Or Grants (I16)
  • Income From The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (I18A)
  • Income From Any Grants Provided In Relation To Coronavirus (Covid-19) (I18B)
  • Income From Any Grants Provided In Relation To Coronavirus (Covid-19) Catch-Up Activity (I18C)
  • Income From Other Additional Grants (I18D)

The full definitions are published here.

We calculated the change in real terms per pupil funding for non-mainstream schools by taking Grant Funding and converting it into real terms using schools’ costs.

CPPF = Change in real terms per pupil funding
GF = Grant Funding
P = Number of pupils
SC = Schools Costs Index

CSP = Change in spending power

Cuts in 2025/26

Core School Funding

School funding is known for being remarkably complicated as it is composed of so many different grants that come and go, for instance, the COVID recovery premium that was withdrawn in summer 2024. We look at core schools funding to fund education for pupils aged 5 to 16 in mainstream schools.

In the financial year 2024-25 this was composed of the following elements:

  • Schools’ Block funding
  • Pupil Premium
  • Core Schools Budget Grant
  • Teachers’ Employer Pension Contributions Grant
  • Teachers’ Pay Additional Grant

In 2025-26, this is being simplified to:

  • Schools’ Block funding
  • Pupil Premium

The other grants were supplements to the Schools’ Block and so they are being rolled up into Schools’ Block funding.

Schools’ Block funding

Schools’ Block funding provides schools with 94% of their core school funding. Schools’ Block funding is only published in retrospect; however, the indicative National Funding Formula (NFF) allocations for 2024-25 and 2025-26 have been published. Schools’ Block allocations are very close to the indicative NFF values. We have used the Impact of schools NFF 2025-26 [14] as a proxy for the Schools’ Block allocations for 2024-25 and 2025-26. Conveniently the government have rolled the Core Schools Budget Grant, Teachers’ Pay Additional Grant and the Teachers’ Employer Pension Contributions Grant into the 2024-25 baseline. This baseline will rise by 2.2% in 2025-26.

Pupil Premium

The Pupil Premium provides additional funding for pupils who have received free school meals at some point in the last 6 years (FSM6). The funding rates have yet to be published. We have assumed the rates will increase by 2.4% slightly more than the increase in the NFF rates – £1,515 for primary FSM6 pupils and £1,075 for secondary FSM6 pupils [15].

We have taken the proportion of schools’ FSM6 pupils and calculated the indicative number of eligible pupils and added this to the indicative NFF allocations to calculate schools’ total core funding allocations.

Falling Pupil Rolls

The number of primary and secondary pupils fell this year for the first time. This October’s school census shows that the number of pupils declined by 44,388 pupils.

YearPrimarySecondaryTotal ChangeChange (%)
2023-244,411,051 3,156,877 7,567,928
2024-254,362,784 3,160,757 7,523,541 -44,388 -0.6%

The decline in pupil numbers is concentrated in primary schools. There is also a significant amount of regional variation. London schools are the worst hit of the 12 local authorities with a fall in roll of 2% or more, 10 of them are in London. The LAs with the biggest falls are: Camden, Lambeth, Islington, Hammersmith and Fulham, Hackney, Isle of Wight, Rutland, Haringey, Southwark, Wandsworth, Westminster, and Newham.

School funding for 2025-26 is set by the pupil numbers for 2024-25. So, although the per pupil
funding rate is set to rise by 2.2%, actual funding will increase by 1.6%. In 24 LAs funding will fall,
which make schools closures inevitable in these areas and probably significantly more widely.

Schools’ Costs

Schools’ costs are composed of three distinct categories: teachers’ pay, non-teaching staff pay and non-staff costs. Teachers’ pay accounts for 52% of school expenditure, non-teaching staff pay for 30% and non-staff costs account for 18% [16].

Teachers’ Pay

Teachers’ pay rises are made for the academic year, but school funding covers the financial year. To calculate the average increase in teaching staff costs for 2025-26, we take 5 months of the increase for 2024-25 and 7 months for 2025-26.

In 2024-25, teachers received a pay rise of 5.5% (April 2025 to August 2025). In addition, there was a little pay drift that increased average costs by 0.2% [17]. Combining this with a pay award of 2.8% for academic year 2025-26 (September 2025 to March 2026), gives an average pay rise of 4% for the financial year 2025-26 (April 2025 to March 2026).

Non-teaching staff

The government intend to increase all public sector workers pay by 2.8% and so we assume this will also apply to non-teaching staff.

Non-staff costs

We assume that non-staff costs will rise in line inflation and we have used the GDP Deflator, which the Office for Budgetary Responsibility predict will rise by 2.4%.

Overall costs

When these costs are combined, we estimate that schools’ costs will increase by 3.4% in 2025-26.

Category of expenditure Cost increase by
category
Category
Weighting
Total
Teaching staff 4.0%52%2.1%
Non-teaching staff 2.8%30%0.8%
Non-staff costs 2.1% 18%0.4%
Schools’ Costs Per Pupil 3.4%*

*Schools’ Costs to 3.4% due to rounding.

School Funding Increases in 2025-26

We found that for 76% of primary schools and 94% of secondary schools their increase in per-pupil funding compared to last year’s baseline is less than 3.4%, so they will not receive a sufficient funding increase to cover their costs.

While a lower proportion of primary schools face cuts to their real terms per pupil funding, many primary schools have the additional difficulty of falling rolls and it is likely that given the lack of financial support many primary schools will close.

To fully fund pay awards for teachers and support staff teaching primary and secondary pupils aged from 5 to 16 requires an additional £580m. To cover the cost of pay awards for staff teaching primary pupils under 5, secondary pupils aged over 16 and pupils at special schools costs an additional £120m. Consequently, to fully fund the pay awards requires an additional £700m.

Sources and Data Release

Schools Level Sources for Primary and Secondary Schools

Pupil Numbers for Primary and Secondary Schools

Funding and Pupil Numbers for Special Schools and Maintained Nursery Schools

LA Maintained Schools

Academies

The number of pupils in alternative provision (AP) in 2016-17 were clearly recorded inaccurately[13] and so we have excluded this year from our calculations for AP.

Data Release

All the data is available for download at www.bit.ly/school_cuts_data.

[1] Ibid, paragraph 48

[2] IFS, National Insurance contributions, March 2023

https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-data-item/ifs-fiscal-facts

[3] Ibid, paragraph 13

[4] Office for Budgetary Responsibility, March 2023 Economic and fiscal outlook – supplementary economy tables, Table 1.7

https://obr.uk/download/march-2023-economic-and-fiscal-outlook-supplementary-economy-tables/?tmstv=1679920075

[5] DfE, Teacher strikes latest: Everything you need to know about the teacher pay offer, 28 March 2023

https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2023/03/28/teacher-strikes-latest-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-teacher-pay-offer/

[6] Table 5

[7] DfE, Schools’ costs 2022 to 2024, February 2023, paragraph 16
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1137908/Schools__costs_2022_to_2024.pdf

[8] The full list is the calculations section.

[9] DfE, Dedicated schools grant 2013 to 2014, 1 July 2013, DSG table of allocations 2013 to 2014

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dedicated-schools-grant-2013-to-2014

[10] DfE, School funding statistics, 25 January 2024

https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-funding-statistics

[11] DfE, National pupil projections, 19 October 2023

https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/national-pupil-projections/2023

[12] What Do They Know, National Pupil Projections, 6 November 2023

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/national_pupil_projections#incoming-2462009

[13] Pupil numbers in 2016-17 for AP were eight times higher than in 2015-16.

[14] DfE, Impact of the schools NFF, 28 November 2024
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/674ed8cf34a339921747cfa3/NFF_schools_impact_table.ods

[15] The Pupil Premium represents just 6% of core school funding. So unless the change in funding is dramatically different to the 2.4% we have assumed there will be no difference to the overall figures.

[16] DfE, Schools’ Costs 2023 to 2025, February 2024
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65e0bd972f2b3b001c7cd7e1/Schools_costs_technical_note_2023_to_2025.pdf

[17]