What’s supply like at the moment? Could I earn enough?

[InsolentAnnie]

Wondering if going back into supply would help my job applications (currently in non teaching pastoral / inclusion and getting nowhere). I’d need to earn more than £23k for it to be worthwhile. Is this possible at the moment? I know it depends on daily rate (I’m UPS2, but I’m also willing to go into the really difficult schools that the agencies found it hard to get others to go into last time I did supply a couple of years ago!) but what’s the availability like at the moment? Is it a lot less due to covid? I’m secondary trained but happy to do primary or secondary, or would particularly like to work in special schools.

The going rate for supply is still about 125 max per day in London through agencies but a lot of schools will only pay cover supervisor rate. I contacted a school direct and they paid me 150 a day but were sneaky or incompetent and so not pay my pension contributions which they should have -I did not realise this at the time.
Supply is this at the beginning and end of the school year, and obviously you ate not paid in the holidays so you are looking at max about 150 days @ 110 = 16,500

You would be lucky to take home £100 a day so I don't think there is any way that you could earn £23k on supply, not unless you are a physics and maths secondary specialist when you might be able to negotiate a higher rate!

You may need to say where you are for people to comment. I am out of the supply game at the moment but have several close friends who do it locally (North West). I think it depends enormously on where you are - the bigger cities with more children and more schools will obviously pose less of an issue than rural areas. If you are secondary trained in a shortage area, things will probably be easier if you want long-term roles but the day to day work is now very much covered by cover supervisors and the pay is awful. You would be lucky to get beyond M6 on longer term supply, and then only after 12 weeks when AWR kicks in unless you are particularly good at negoiating or someone in SLT in the school knows you are worth the money.

It's a game and you need to play it - sign up with all the agencies you can find (you only need one DBS on the update service) and sign up now for September because it takes time for references and DBS to be done. Some schools with known September vacancies will already be using agencies to find people for them - so again, if you're not signed up now, you're starting to miss out. Agencies want good staff on their books and will sign you up with promises they are unable to keep - they are all chasing the same work at the end of the day so if you don't sign with all the agencies, you will miss it as some schools have preferred agencies they work with.

You need to allow for the agency to get to know you. It gets easier when you get good feedback and/or schools start asking for you by name. You can pull in £23k in a year but I wouldn't bank on it for the first year if you end up having to accept day to day cover supervisor work to get known a bit.

If secondary trained, you may struggle to get primary supply - probably depends on the area but there isn't the shortage of teachers in primary generally that we are all seeing in secondary. However, if you are shortage area trained, you may find a niche in primary such as MFL. If you want to switch to primary, there is any number of companies out there providing PPA cover in specialist areas - MFL, ICT, PE, music - so do have a look at those. I have no experience with special schools. I do know the local PRU and all the local sink schools struggle to get long term supply staff so if your behaviour management is good, there's probably something out there for you!

When you get in school, make it known to receptionists/cover organiszer that you've enjoyed the day and would love to come back. This helps enormously in terms of getting asked back. Tell any teacher you speak to that you love it and want to come again. Make your specialism known in schools you really like because they do remember you when stuff comes up.

Hope that helps.

Thanks, that helps. I’m north west and within reach of a large city and other big urban area. Last time I did it, a couple of years ago, I only had two days in the few months I was doing it where I didn’t get work and was on about £130pd - this was partly because I am quite happy in tough schools and totally unbothered by dealing with serious behaviour. As a result I did get asked back a lot. I was just wondering if it has changed significantly due to Covid. I don’t earn much at the moment but it is a permanent job - I just don’t know if it’s worth taking the leap and if it’ll help me get something longer term in an actual teaching role.

Also beware the umbrella company scam where they pay you a slightly higher rate but you have to cover the employer as well the employee NI and tax. I refused to do this but they put massive pressure on you to to and it massively reduces your daily ‘rate’.

I also discovered that one school that was asking for me by name was being told I was unavailable because the agency preferred to put in cheaper people who accepted cover supervisor rates.

@TeddingtonTrashbag that’s awful!!

I work directly for my LA and not for an agency. I earn £165 a day for primary in the East Midlands. However I started on less and have 'proved myself '.