How long until schools realise wages have gone up?

[ThreeonaHill]

I'm not talking about teachers this time, actually for the first time in years we're finding teacher recruitment OK, but support staff...?

We are carrying vacancies we can't fill for TAs, admin, kitchen and site staff. The hours are no longer attractive, former SAHMs with a "little" PT job just aren't a thing any more, families need two proper incomes and other employers have recognised the need to pay more to attract staff.

My teen DS gets a better hourly rate working in a bakery than the caretaker vacancy we're currently advertising.

We're an LA school, tied to LA job evaluations and payscales. I have noticed local academies are starting to offer a bit more (which doesn't help us!) but I understand they're struggling to recruit still.

Obviously schools can't just put up wages without increased funding, so are we supposed to just manage without filling these vacancies?

Is it a national problem or just here (South east)?

It's a problem in East Anglia. I'm support staff and need a level 6 qualification to do my job however my salary is not reflected in this fact.
If I were to look for another job I don't think it would be in a school.

I'm in the north west. It's an issue here too

Me too. I love my job and I do think I'd struggle to go back to working 46 weeks a year, but if I wanted a change I probably wouldnt look at schools.

I'm fortunate in that I have an excellent pension from a previous career, but if I was at a stage in life where the income mattered, I wouldn't be doing this and we know that income matters to more and more people now.

However, relative to TAs etc, I am quite well paid.

@ThreeonaHill
please can I ask what your job is?

I'm business manager in a PRU. 130 staff across 4 sites

I would love to return to teaching in many ways and I’m good at it. I’d be looking at a 10-15K pay cut though. A fab job has
come up locally but I just can’t afford to do it. That’s the bottom line.

There isn't the money in school budgets to pay the salaries though. And the schools Secretary has just said that we need to reduce costs (!!!!!) as there won't be any more money. It's the government who need to realise this not schools.

I’ve got 5 weeks left in my current support staff role, and start a higher paid job in July. I love my current job and would love to keep doing it. Although never advertised as such, it needs degree level qualifications/experience but doesn’t pay to reflect that. As a family we can’t sustain this level of pay, and the 1.75% “pay-rise” last year was nothing short of depressing. They are going to struggle to recruit, especially as 2 out of 3 of us are leaving for the same role for the same reason and the school I work in has several other support staff vacancies at the moment and very few applicants.

Support staff pay and conditions in the state sector are ridiculous. I've just moved to a private school and my FTE salary is double what it was in state (plus perks), for an almost identical job. I think with teaching there's much greater equivalence in pay, plus at least in the state sector as a teacher you're still guaranteed the TPS, which is a big draw. I realise I'm contributing to the problem by jumping ship, but I'm just no longer prepared to earn practically minimum wage for a job that requires pretty high levels of intelligence, experience, commitment and resilience. No idea what the answer is, other than a huge injection of cash that the government doesn't have.

My pay has practically stagnated over the last ten years and no TLRs for support staff either as they are for teachers only.

Luckily it suits me in a number of other ways - but the salary is not one!

I always think this when I look at the job descriptions for support staff. They want the moon on a stick in the job description but are willing to pay peanuts. In the past few years almost all the office staff and all the IT support staff have left at my school. We have managed to recruit but mainly because TAs have picked up these jobs. We have then had to recruit more TA staff. This has been achieved by recruiting school leavers! Our IT support staff look like they're on work experience.