What Educational Leaders Miss About Teacher Turnover and Organisational Culture

By Tessa Dodson. 

Across every sector, reducing staff turnover is a common goal – but education faces a unique challenge.  

In most industries, a single organisation’s employee turnover does not necessarily reflect a loss of skills industry-wide. In education however, if a teacher leaves the profession, they create a hard-to-fill gap in trained expertise. 

In this article, we’ll examine what teacher turnover patterns can reveal about a school's professional culture, offering leaders a clearer understanding of what strengthens teacher retention, as well as real-world examples of schools that successfully improved retention with implementable Business Psychology strategies. 

Connecting Attrition to Wider Staffing Shortages 

Around a quarter of UK teachers leave within their first three years, while fewer than 60% remain in the profession after 10 years. Losing experienced teachers in particular deepens shortages, especially in hard-to-fill subjects, while also increasing pressure on schools to recruit replacements. The Education Committee also notes that teacher vacancies doubled between 2020 and 2022, illustrating the further workforce pressures of high teacher turnover on those who stay. 

The UK Government had laid out a plan to recruit 6,500 ‘expert’ teachers, targeted at shortage subjects and areas. But the vast scale of teacher attrition cannot be addressed by recruitment alone – retention needs to be improved.  

The following four steps provide a helpful starting point for educational institutions. 

1. Identify Unsustainable Work Cultures 

49% of education staff report that their workplace culture negatively affects their mental health, with burnout a significant factor in career changes.  

Poorly balanced workload is part of this picture. While burnout and workload issues are found in many industries, consider the specifically high toll on teachers as demands increase around everyday classroom responsibilities: 

From a Business Psychology perspective, the job demands-resources (JD-R) model helps explain this culture of imbalance by considering how demands such as time pressure and disruptive pupil behaviour interact with resources. When these demands continue without sufficient support or autonomy, the role can become increasingly difficult to sustain. 

2. Address Gaps in Inclusive Leadership 

Supporting staff retention often requires a professional environment that prioritises inclusive school leadership. Educators from different backgrounds need opportunities to feel valued and supported through mentoring, professional development and career growth. 

In 2025 to 2026, 17.4% of teachers identified as belonging to an ethnic minority group. However, representation in leadership roles varied across ethnicities. Only 9.3% of Black or Black British teachers and 7.8% of Asian or Asian British teachers were in leadership roles, compared with 16.1% of White British teachers.  

The issue extends beyond representation. Creating an inclusive environment means giving teachers avenues to contribute, develop and progress. 

3. Provide Meaningful Recognition 

When teachers receive acknowledgment for their efforts and accomplishments, it can help them stay engaged and motivated. The issue arises when recognition exists only informally, inconsistently or not at all. 

Research found that while 65% of teachers felt valued by their school, only 34% agreed that their school recognised and rewarded high performance. The gap suggests that appreciation does not always translate into tangible recognition. 

In practice, recognition can be particularly important when teachers take on responsibilities beyond their core role. For example, a teacher may repeatedly support colleagues during staff shortages, take on additional duties or help manage challenges outside their classroom. When these contributions become routine, they can become less visible to leaders. Without real-world acknowledgement, repeated extra effort may feel expected rather than valued. 

4. Create Pathways for Professional Progression 

The lack of promotion opportunities in education can appear to offer a straightforward reason why teachers leave. However, it may be only a surface-level explanation, as career progression can take different forms throughout an educator's working life. 

According to the Department for Education's School and College Voice, 46% of teachers were interested in advancing to a leadership position within the next three years. Options in professional development included a National Professional Qualification, mentoring early-career teachers and initial teacher trainees and coaching or mentoring from senior leaders. 

The challenge is turning these opportunities into a visible pathway.  

Teachers may feel professionally stalled, even as their workload and contributions increase. Making opportunities for meaningful professional development clear and accessible, with appropriate support and recognition, can help teachers see a future within their current school. 

Taking Action to Strengthen Teacher Retention 

Psychological models for business and workplace settings can help educational leaders address the experiences that influence teacher retention, as demonstrated by the following real-world successes: 

Using Turnover Data for Organisational Insight 

Turnover data can help educational leaders move beyond treating teacher exits as isolated events.