John Howson
April 27, 2026
The DfE has today published the April data on postgraduate ITT courses, as at 20th April 2026. Initial teacher training application statistics for courses starting in the 2026 to 2027 academic year – Apply for teacher training – GOV.UK

 

This is the first month where offers can be compared with the DfE’s required need for each subject for September 2026 courses. I have previously posted about the draconian changes to the demand in many subjects as required by the DfE that have resulted from a different approach to unfilled vacancies. ITT Numbers for 2026 – brutal realism from DfE or big risk? | John Howson

 

Here is my assessment of possible outcomes for September, when courses commence, based upon current offers and past trends. It will be interesting to see how my view compares with that of Jack Worth at NfER.

 

Subject Target 2026/27 offer April 2026 DfE identified need FILL?
Chemistry 690 829 -139 YES
Biology 675 398 277 YES
Mathematics 2000 1752 248 YES
Design & Technology 620 382 238 POSSIBLY
Art & Design 605 449 156 YES
Geography 685 353 332 POSSIBLY
Classics 75 36 39 NO
English 1980 1176 804 PROBABLY
Drama 370 207 163 PROBABLY
Business Studies 1200 224 976 NO
Music 260 161 99 POSSIBLY
Religious Education 450 339 111 POSSIBLY
Others 2035 372 1663 NO
History 520 736 -216 YES
Modern Languages 1085 946 139 YES
Physics 810 1140 -330 YES
Physical Education 655 1175 -520 YES
Computing 565 539 26 YES

 

In some subjects, such as history, physics!, physical education and chemistry, providers have already made more offers than required ‘need’.  This demonstrates the danger of leaving it so late in the recruitment cycle to announce estimated demand.

 

In the past, these numbers used to appear before Christmas. With a rolling offer system in place, rather than a defined closing date, leaving the announcement of ‘need’ until April is likely to cost someone money. Will the DfE pay bursaries to all students offered a place, even if recruitment is above the stated ‘need’? If so, that could be seen as a waste of money.

 

However, of more concern are the subjects where, even with the new numbers for ‘need’, there are unlikely to be enough applicants to fill all the places. Based on previous trends, classics, business studies and the ’others’ grouping will not meet their ‘need’ number. I think it is time that the ‘other’ category, with 2,035 places is disaggregated into different subjects, after all, it is now by far the largest group in the subject’s table.

 

I have some concern about where design and technology, geography, music and religious education will produce enough offers to meet the revised ‘need’. However, I can now see why the bursary was removed from music. I still think that was a serious error of judgement, as this is a subject where only those with appropriate subject knowledge are accepted onto courses. Music has one of the highest applications to offer ratios of any subject. Current offers are the second lowest April ‘offer’ number since 2018.

 

What happens in the wider economy, and graduate job market, will determine the outcome of this recruitment round. I suspect there will be a summer surge in applications, as new graduates discover how tough the job market has become. This should mean a good year for teaching course. However, many applicants may now have found they have left it too late to secure a place for this autumn. This year will really be a case of ‘the early bird that catches the worm’.

 

I will now delve deeper into the data for another post about the nature of applicants and applications as revealed in this month’s data.

View the blog post here

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