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School leadership in England: characteristics and trends

Statistics on the size of the leadership population and the characteristics of leaders in state-funded schools.

• From: Department for Education
• Published: 28 April 2022
• Last updated: 2 October 2025
  Show all updates

  1. 2 October 2025

     Added a link to the ad hoc statistics 'School leadership 2024: retention'.

  2. 9 June 2022

     Added an addendum to the report, containing leadership retention to teaching tables.

  3. 28 April 2022

     First published.

Applies to England

Documents

School leadership retention: 2024

https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-leadership-retention/2024

School leadership 2010 to 2020: characteristics and trends – report

Ref: ISBN 978-1-83870-353-0

PDF, 4.81 MB, 124 pages

School leadership in England 2010 to 2020: characteristics and trends – addendum

Ref: ISBN 978-1-83870-353-0

PDF, 238 KB, 15 pages

School leadership 2010 to 2020: characteristics and trends data tables – underlying data

ZIP, 6.93 MB

Details

The ‘School leadership 2010 to 2020: characteristics and trends – report’ provides a detailed analysis of data available in the school workforce census to improve our understanding of school leaders.

It covers:

• the size and structure of the teaching and leadership population
• characteristics of teachers in leadership roles
• progression to and retention in leadership roles

The addendum to the report contains additional figures to provide further clarity on leadership retention.

‘School leadership retention 2024’ updates some of the leadership retention tables for headteachers, deputy headteachers and assistant headteachers using the latest-available school workforce census data.