The Employment Rights Act 2025 strengthens protections covering parental leave, unfair dismissal and sick pay, alongside introducing new legislation to tackle insecure and unethical working arrangements.
While the measures are a real step forward in some industries, the act holds potentially unintended consequences for schools that are already struggling with budgets.
The act stipulates that employers must offer qualifying workers guaranteed hours reflecting the hours they actually work, and need reasonable notice of shifts and payments when shifts are cancelled, shortened, or moved at short notice.
Although key implementation details remain subject to regulations and consultation, it’s important that we get it right for teaching to limit its impact on school workforce management.
This applies to both direct workers as well as supply staff, but if the education sector does not get the exemptions and regulations it requires, it will lead to challenges.
School requirements differ
The education sector functions very differently to other industries, relying on flexible staffing to respond to unpredictable absence. Supply teachers are a necessary part of school staffing, with teachers absent for an average of eight days per year, and total number of days lost to teacher absences across the country nearly 2.8 million days per year.
The reality of workforce management within a school means headteachers are dealing with not only sickness and parental leave, but also fluctuating demand through the academic year, unexpected vacancies, safeguarding-related absences and compulsory staff training and CPD.
Some requirements can be planned well in advance, whereas others only emerge on the morning a teacher is unable to come in to teach a class. For headteachers, managing a school means responding to staffing needs that cannot always be predicted.
The role of supply teaching has been created specifically to meet these needs, however the proposed guaranteed-hours provisions for agency workers create friction. For example, we currently see supply teachers working in the same school over a protracted period of time to cover a long-term absence. However, that requirement could disappear overnight when the teacher returns.
Unlike other workplaces that can perhaps absorb or redistribute roles across the existing team, we know that schools have a set number of classes, fixed timetables and requirements for appropriately qualified staff. As schools cannot accurately predict future demand for cover, the burden the proposed changes will have on schools is impractical and risks impacting teaching cover.
The challenge is how to improve job security for workers while preserving a school’s ability to secure the right teacher when there is an unexpected need.
Guaranteed hours
Rules around guaranteed hours within the act means workers would potentially have to be offered a contract reflecting the hours they regularly work. This is calculated using a proposed reference period of 12 weeks.
The act allows guaranteed-hours offers to be made on a limited-term basis in certain circumstances, including where work is needed until a particular event occurs. Schools therefore need clarity on how these provisions will accommodate cover that ends when their teacher returns.
Could sustained cover create an obligation for headteachers to contract supply staff? If so, this has the potential to reduce a lot of the flexibility that schools rely upon when using supply cover, adding more cost and administrative burden to headteachers already juggling a challenging role.
While the legislation is in place to reduce one-sided flexibility in the workplace favouring employers, the changes could inadvertently reduce flexibility for both schools and supply teachers.
Impact on whole education industry
The knock-on effect of this could see headteachers more cautious about booking supply cover for roles that could become long-term cover, or even parental leave that will be for more than 12 weeks. The act is designed to stop big businesses taking advantage of their employees, but it doesn’t reflect the unique staffing requirements of schools. Moreover, it’s not what anyone in the education sector wants.
Many supply teachers choose supply work for the flexibility to decide when, where and how frequently they teach, while others would welcome more predictable hours and income.
The right to decline guaranteed hours recognises that preferences differ, but implementation must also consider whether changes in schools’ booking decisions could reduce the range of assignments available to them.
Historical work doesn’t establish permanent need
As previously mentioned, organisations will likely need to rely on a reference period to calculate the proposed contracts and establish the hours required going forward. For restaurants or warehouses, this may give strong indications for the expected future need.
But, within a school setting, the prior requirements of supply staff cannot be accurately calculated based on prior needs. What happened last term cannot reliably establish what cover will be required next term.
With an unexpected vacancy that requires a specific level of qualification, schools may need to utilise supply staffing for several months before that role is filled, however it would not indicate a future requirement.
Similarly, if a staff member was off on long-term leave due to ill-health, a headteacher cannot predict how long cover will be needed for, not when the individual may return – often with little to no notice.
Without clear answers, leaders could face uncertainty precisely when they need to make quick, confident staffing decisions.
Operational consequences on leadership
Headteachers and leadership teams already have multiple decisions to make with regards to available funding, staffing needs, policies and Ofsted. Adding uncertainty over future obligations to these challenges further competes for limited resources.
Supply cover is rarely an optional purchase, and headteachers must provide education and meet their responsibilities to pupils and parents even when a teacher is absent.
Additional employment or compliance costs could exacerbate what’s already a challenging time for headteachers. However, it goes beyond this. Administering these contracts adds another layer of both staff time and workload on an already-stretched sector. Monitoring working patterns, assessing eligibility and managing offers could require additional time from headteachers, school managers and HR teams creating a cumulative impact.
The broader impact
What cannot be overstated, is the potential impact on pupils. Students need steady, high-quality teaching, with continuity often a cornerstone to their progress. Any need for supply cover is disruptive to a degree, but being able to retain a familiar supply teacher goes some way to preserving stability and ensuring student progress.
By adding challenges in maintaining provision, there is the potential that headteachers are unable to make straightforward decisions based on the needs of the school, but instead will need to weigh them up against the complications that could arise.
As such, we need to recognise the additional pressure not only on leadership teams, but to existing staff who may be asked to take on additional responsibilities in order to alleviate the need for supply cover.
Need for clarity
Crucial to the application of the Employment Rights Act is detailing the eligibility and implementation rules. Having opt-out options is helpful, but does this just add another administrative layer that costs already-stretched leadership time and budget?
Inevitably the Employment Rights Act will put additional budget pressures on schools who potentially need to guarantee ongoing pay to supply staff in order to adhere to legislation, adding this to already rising staffing and running costs.
It’s important for policymakers to understand the complexity of the education sector’s staffing needs and necessary practices, and the detrimental impact that implementing a blanket employment policy could have on an already overstretched sector.
Gavin Beart is Divisional Managing Director for education at Reed.
