The English government has unveiled new plans to incentivize the recruitment of thousands of extra nursery workers and childminders in response to increasing demand for funded childcare hours. The scheme includes a £1,000 tax-free cash incentive and a campaign to raise the profile of childcare workers. The incentive is being trialed in 20 local authorities and will be offered to up to 3,000 new hires or staff returning to early years, after three months on the job.
By September 2025, all pre-school children of working parents, from the age of nine months, will be able to access 30 hours of childcare during term time. However, early-years charities say the campaign is “too late” to help with the imminent rise in demand.
The think tank Nesta estimates that around 27,500 early-years professionals will be needed to meet the expected rise in demand for places, marking an 8% expansion of the current workforce. While the recruitment campaign will provide much-needed monetary incentives and highlight the important work of early-years professionals, there are concerns that such campaigns alone are insufficient to drive up educator numbers given the low pay and limited career progression that plague the industry.
Nonetheless, the number of early-years workers has marginally increased by 4% between 2022 and 2023, from 334,400 to 347,300, and is now back at pre-pandemic levels. Crucially, there has been a rise in staff working in private providers and school-based nurseries, whereas the number of people working in voluntary group providers and childminders is continuing to fall.
To fill the workforce gap, apprenticeships have been crucial for many nurseries. Chris McCandless, the Europe chief executive of the largest UK nursery group, Busy Bees, believes that the recruitment campaign is welcome as the industry needs to grow. However, some parents of two-year-olds eligible for funded hours in April are still struggling to secure a nursery place and fear being left behind
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