Addressing poor pay and valuing the workforce are critical to tackling the early years staffing crisis as nurseries, pre-schools and childminding settings continue to struggle to recruit and retain staff, a new survey by leading membership organisation the Early Years Alliance has revealed.  

The online survey, which received 889 responses and was carried out between 10 and 19 July 2024, found that 78% of settings have found it difficult to recruit staff in the last year, with nearly half (48%) finding it ‘very difficult’.    

More than six in 10 respondents (61%) reported that staff from their setting had left the sector entirely over the previous six months, while eight in ten (82%) had seen an increase in the number of staff members leaving the sector compared to two years ago. 

As a result of the sector’s ongoing recruitment and retention challenges, in the six months prior to the survey, half of respondents (50%) have had to limit or stop taking on new children and nearly two in five (17%) have reduced or restricted their opening hours. Half of settings (51%) said staffing shortages have had a negative impact on the quality of provision.  

The survey also found that over a third of respondents (37%) are actively considering leaving the sector themselves. These respondents did, however, cite several changes that would encourage them to remain in the sector. These include feeling more valued by the government (82%), better pay (80%) and improved benefits (53%) such as sick pay.  

These findings come just a month before the next phase of the early entitlement expansion – which will offer 15 hours per week of funded early years provision to eligible children aged nine months and older – and six months since the start of the Department for Education’s early years recruitment campaign: Do Something Big, Work With Small Children. In total, while around half (52%) of respondents said they had heard of the campaign, of those who had advertised at least one role since the campaign launch, more than eight in 10 (81%) said there was no change in the number of applications for roles in their setting since its launch, with just 5% noting an increase in the period, and 10% seeing a decrease. 

In response to the survey results, the Alliance is calling on the government to: 

• Determine and publish a set of pay ambitions for the early years sector in England, setting out what it considers to be suitable salary ranges for each role level in the sector – and to ensure that early entitlement funding is set and maintained at an adequate level to enable early years settings to meet those salary expectations. 
• Ensure that the early years is consistently recognised and valued as an education profession 
• Ensure there are clear and consistent career pathways into and through the sector, as well as funded training and CPD opportunities. 

Commenting, Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, said: “It’s incredibly concerning, but sadly not at all surprising, that not only are so many settings continuing to struggle to recruit, but also, a significant proportion of experienced educators are actively considering leaving the sector.

“As these findings show, staffing challenges have already pushed many providers to limit both places and hours offered. With less than a month before the next phase of the early entitlement expansion, it’s clear just how critical the need to address the sector’s staffing crisis is.

“But while there is no silver bullet to the sector’s staffing crisis, what today’s findings also show is that this is not an insurmountable challenge. Working in the early years has the potential to be one of the best jobs in the world, and as our results show, valuing the early years sector and, crucially, ensuring that educators can receive a salary which reflects the importance of the work they do are key to attracting and retaining educators in the coming years.

“At the Alliance, we know just how passionate, dedicated and skilled the early years workforce is – but the fact is that for far too long, these educators have been undervalued, underappreciated and underpaid as a result of years of underfunding and polices that have failed to acknowledge the importance of the work they do day-in and day-out.

“As such, we hope that the new government will take urgent action on this crucial issue and work with the sector to develop and implement a comprehensive workforce plan: one that recognises the need to improve retention as well as recruitment and, at long last, tackles the issue of low sector pay. We look forward to working with them to make this a reality.”

Survey comments  

• “We are at crisis point; we need an improved attitude to early years where we are valued the same as teaching staff and increased funding to pay better wages that entice and retain people wanting to work in early years. None of us have ever done this job for the money but if the future workforce can potentially earn more in a supermarket, then there will not be a future for the early years.” 
• “We usually recruit from a group of candidates and we always choose the person with the most qualifications and experience and who will best fit within our setting. Now, we are lucky if we can recruit anyone, and this causes standards to fall. We have more issues and problems to deal with and managing the staff has become much harder.”