17 June 2026
If you ask almost any secondary teacher in England why colleagues are leaving the profession, you’ll likely hear a familiar answer: “It’s not the teaching — it’s everything around it.”
That simple line captures a much deeper and more complex story. One that blends policy, workload, school culture, and personal experience. To really understand it, we need to go beyond statistics and look at the lived reality of teachers themselves.
Two such stories, that of Craig and Dave, former teachers turned education resource providers offer a powerful lens through which to explore the issue.
The big picture: what the data tells us
Across Department for Education research and national surveys, five consistent drivers explain why teachers leave:
- Excessive workload.
- Stress and poor wellbeing.
- Pupil behaviour challenges.
- Pay and financial considerations.
- Leadership, accountability, and working conditions.
At the top of that list, by a considerable margin, is workload. Around 90% of teachers considering leaving cite it as a factor, and it’s not difficult to see why.
The job is no longer just teaching. It is planning, marking, data entry, behaviour logging, meetings, emails, evidence-gathering, and more. Individually, each demand is reasonable. Together, they become overwhelming.
But statistics only take us so far. What does this actually feel like?
Craig’s story: when the job becomes too much
Craig didn’t go into teaching expecting to leave. Quite the opposite, he loved it. He progressed quickly, becoming head of department and taking on additional responsibilities. On paper, it looked like success.
But beneath the surface, something was changing.
“I didn’t notice it happening… it chipped away at me.”
The workload wasn’t just heavy, it was relentless. Leadership expectations, accountability measures, and administrative tasks accumulated to the point where prioritising became impossible. At one stage, Craig found himself asking his line manager a simple question:
“What do you want me to do first?”
The answer? Everything.
This is exactly what the research highlights: workload isn’t just about long hours, it’s about competing, often unrealistic demands. Teachers are expected to plan meticulously, mark extensively, track data, attend meetings, respond to initiatives, provide evidence and react to constant accountability pressures all at once.
Eventually, the impact became personal. Craig describes a gradual slide into stress, anxiety, and ultimately medically diagnosed depression. Crucially, it wasn’t the classroom that caused it.
“The bit I loved, the teaching, I was doing less and less of.”
This aligns closely with national findings: many teachers report that they still love teaching itself but cannot sustain the conditions around it.
At his lowest point, Craig found himself walking into lessons unprepared. Not through laziness, but exhaustion.
“What did we do last lesson? … That wasn’t for them, it was for me.”
For a conscientious teacher, that moment is deeply uncomfortable and it creates a vicious cycle. Overwork leads to underperformance, which leads to guilt, which worsens wellbeing.
Eventually, Craig had to step away from full-time teaching, but his story doesn’t end there.
When stripped back to just teaching — no meetings, no excessive admin, no leadership burden — he rediscovered what he loved.
“I fell back in love with the profession.”
That contrast is telling.
Dave’s story: When leadership and culture don’t align
Dave’s journey out of teaching took a different path, but points to another key factor in teacher attrition: leadership and working culture.
As an experienced assistant headteacher, Dave was at a career crossroads, considering promotion to deputy head. But a series of interactions made him question whether he wanted to continue.
One moment, in particular, stood out: a meeting about attendance.
Dave wanted to discuss strategies, student stories, and impact. His headteacher wanted a number — nothing more.
“What’s the percentage attendance in Year 8?”
Repeatedly, the conversation was reduced to data rather than professional dialogue.
“A number’s arbitrary… what matters is how we improve it.”
This clash reflects a broader issue identified in research: high-stakes accountability systems can shift focus away from meaningful teaching and leadership toward metrics, compliance, and evidence.
For Dave, it wasn’t just disagreement, it was a signal.
“I knew… I couldn’t work for this man anymore.”
Leadership style and professional trust are critical. When teachers feel reduced to data managers rather than educators, dissatisfaction grows.
Research supports this: lack of autonomy, rigid systems, and poor leadership culture are major contributors to teachers leaving the profession. Teachers want to feel trusted, valued, and able to exercise professional judgement.
When that’s missing, even senior leaders walk away.
It’s not just one thing, it’s the accumulation
What both stories make clear, and what the evidence strongly supports, is that teachers rarely leave for a single reason.
It’s not just workload.
It’s not just stress.
It’s not just leadership.
It’s the accumulation.
Consider a typical week:
- Teaching multiple classes across different year groups.
- Planning lessons and resources.
- Marking hundreds of books or assessments.
- Logging behaviour incidents and following up.
- Entering and analysing data.
- Attending meetings and CPD sessions.
- Communicating with parents.
- Preparing for inspections or internal reviews.
Now layer on emotional demands: supporting students, managing behaviour, dealing with safeguarding concerns.
Then add accountability pressures and limited recovery time.
The result? A job that routinely stretches into 50–60+ hours per week, spilling into evenings and weekends.
As Craig described, the consequence is not just tiredness, it’s a gradual erosion of capacity, motivation, and wellbeing.
Why teachers stay — until they can’t
One of the most striking points from both Craig and Dave’s stories is that they didn’t leave because they didn’t care. They left because they cared too much to continue as they were.
Craig and Dave both felt “trapped”. Aware that teaching offered:
A stable salary.
A strong pension.
Job security.
Familiarity.
It also required a unique skillset, and how easy was this to transition into other sectors?
These are powerful anchors. For many teachers, they delay the decision to leave, but when the job begins to affect health, relationships, and self-worth, those anchors can start to feel like weights.
So… why do so many teachers leave?
Because the job, as it is currently experienced by many, has drifted away from its core purpose.
Teaching should be about:
Inspiring students.
Explaining ideas.
Building relationships.
Making a difference.
Instead, too often it becomes:
Managing systems.
Producing evidence.
Meeting targets.
Surviving workload.
One thing very clear. Teachers don’t leave because they stop loving teaching. They leave because the conditions make it unsustainable.
A final thought
Both Craig and Dave still work in education. They still visit schools, support teachers, and engage with students. They didn’t leave education — they left the full-time classroom as it had become.
Perhaps that’s the most important reflection of all. If we want to retain great teachers, the question isn’t “Why are they leaving?” It’s “What has changed that made staying so difficult?”
Want to know more? Check out our ‘At the chalk face’ episode on YouTube.
