Hear my voice: a companion study exploring the impact of perceived constraints on teacher autonomy and job satisfaction in UK post-compulsory education

The educational sector deals with a shortage of teachers, but teaching staff retention is not enough to maintain optimal levels of job satisfaction. There are a multitude of variables at play to ensure the delicate balance between perception of autonomy, work flexibility, job satisfaction, which in turn influences people’s perceptions over their ability to manage constraints. The current paper comes as an in-depth qualitative analysis of a single mixed-method data gathering. This paper’s aim was to explore some of the most relevant variables, such as time demands, the inspection regime, awarding bodies, autonomy, lack of support and resource limitations, experience and adaptability, personal strategies and coping mechanisms, in a cross-sectional qualitative study on a sample of 103 respondents. Thematic analysis of responses from 65 teachers in our sample reveals the effects of the managerialist, data driven culture on teachers’ work satisfaction, over their perceived well-being, and shows that our sample teachers are aware of the limits of their own agency. Their responses also indicate that support from leadership in a top-down manner may be needed to achieve meaningful and lasting improvements. Suggestions for future research are made, reflecting the need for more focused studies, employing longitudinal quantitative and qualitative methodologies and larger samples in the post-compulsory education sector.