Who becomes a teacher? Longitudinal evidence on teacher supply in England using administrative data linkages.

Having access to high-quality, longitudinal information capturing the characteristics of who enters and exits teaching is vital to understanding teacher supply. Yet such data are often costly and challenging to collect. This paper explores how administrative data linkages can partially address this issue. Using recently matched data between the School Workforce Census and National Pupil Database for one school cohort in England, we explore how a set of characteristics are related to the recruitment and retention of teachers in England. Our results illustrate how speaking English as an Additional Language, living at home as an undergraduate and attendance at a Russell Group university (as an undergraduate) are linked to the probability of entering teaching and the rate at which teachers leave the state school sector. We also illustrate how individuals from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds are under-represented within the teaching profession, due to their lower levels of academic achievement while at school. In doing so, the work illustrates how further such administrative data linkages – for other school cohorts and to other datasets – would provide both policymakers and researchers with a valuable, low-cost resource that could enhance our collective understanding of the teacher labour force.