Austerity, outsourcing and the state school workforce: trends from 20,000 English state schools

How have public sector austerity and the outsourcing of school provision under the Academies programme affected the state school workforce in England? Existing research claims that teachers are being substituted by cheaper support staff and that schools are becoming increasingly dominated by managers. However, these claims focus on the period before austerity-induced budget cuts and the outsourcing of more than 9,000 schools under the Academies programme. Using nationally comprehensive data sources, analyses reveal that changes under austerity have been drastic, far surpassing those associated with outsourced Academies. Long-term increases in the number of teachers and support staff have gone into reverse, while managerial teams have continued to grow. This research has important implications for our understanding of how marketization and austerity affect state school workforces.