Leadership

The Science Technician Workforce in English Secondary Schools

This report finds that the number of science technicians and the amount of support they provide for secondary school science departments has fallen steadily since 2011/12.

This Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) by the National Foundation for Educational Research on how science technician provision in secondary schools in England has changed since 2011/12 reveals that there has been no significant improvement in the pay and employment conditions of school science technicians over the past decade.

The report also finds that the number of science technicians and the amount of support they provide for secondary school science departments has fallen steadily since 2011/12.

There is also considerable variation in the level of science technician support across schools and at least part of this variation is explained by geographical region. Regions in the north of England have considerably lower levels of technician support than in London and the south of England.

There are also differences in the level of science technician support by school context: schools with less-deprived pupil intakes tend to have higher support ratios than schools with more-deprived pupil intakes and academies tend to have a slightly higher support ratio than local authority maintained schools.

In addition, the turnover rate of science technicians has been around 20 per cent between 2014/15 and 2018/19, having risen from around 15 per cent in 2011/12. The overall turnover rate for science technicians is about the same as it is for teachers.

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