Supply Teaching Pay: What Teachers Can Expect

Pay is one of the most searched topics in supply teaching, and one of the least clearly explained.

Most articles quote a daily rate range and leave it there. The reality is more nuanced. What you earn as a supply teacher depends on how you are employed, where you work, your experience, what type of cover you take on, and whether anyone is taking a cut between what the setting pays and what reaches your account.

This article sets out how supply teaching pay actually works in the UK, including the figures you can use to benchmark your own rate.

For supply teachers directly employed by a school or local authority, pay is governed by the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD).

The STPCD formula is straightforward: your appropriate annual salary divided by 195 teaching days gives your daily rate. So a teacher on the Main Pay Range at M1 in England outside London, with an annual salary of £32,916 in 2025/26, would have a daily rate of approximately £169. A teacher at the top of the Upper Pay Range, on £51,048, would be at approximately £262 per day.

The formula applies regardless of whether you work a full day or a partial one. If you cover only part of a day, you should be paid on a pro rata sessional basis, not simply a flat reduced amount.

The STPCD recognises four pay regions in England, each with different pay scales. The table below shows the daily rates at M1 (the minimum of the Main Pay Range) and U3 (the top of the Upper Pay Range) for each region in 2025/26. All figures are before tax and National Insurance deductions.

Calculated as annual salary ÷ 195, rounded to the nearest pound. 2025/26 STPCD figures.

Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland operate under separate pay frameworks with their own scales. If you are working outside England, the applicable document will differ.

This is where the gap between what you might expect and what you actually receive often emerges.

Agencies are not bound by the STPCD. They set their own pay rates, and those rates are separate from what the setting pays the agency for your services. The difference between the two is the agency margin.

Research from the National Education Union found that around half of agency supply teachers surveyed were paid less than £125 per day. To contextualise that figure: a daily rate of £125 over the full academic year amounts to roughly £4,000 less annually than a newly qualified teacher on M1 in a permanent post.

Agency rates vary considerably. Some agencies pay closer to scale, particularly for long-term placements or shortage subjects. Others set rates well below what a directly employed supply teacher would receive for the same work. The difference is not always transparent unless you know to ask.

Under the Agency Workers Regulations 2010, once you have completed 12 weeks in the same role at the same setting, you become entitled to the same basic pay and conditions as a directly employed teacher doing equivalent work.

In practice, this means your daily rate should align with the appropriate STPCD point for your experience level after that threshold is met.

It is worth tracking this yourself. Some agencies apply the uplift automatically and correctly. Others do not unless challenged. Knowing when your 12 weeks are up and what rate you should be on is your starting point for any conversation with an agency about pay.

Many agencies will ask, or insist, that you work through an umbrella company rather than being paid directly by the agency on a PAYE basis.

An umbrella company acts as your formal employer and handles payroll. On the surface this can seem straightforward. In practice, it often means the umbrella company passes through costs to you, including employer National Insurance contributions and its own fee, which reduces your take-home pay below the headline daily rate you were quoted.

Tax rules that changed in 2016 also mean that supply teachers working through umbrella companies can no longer claim tax relief on home-to-work travel and subsistence expenses, which was previously a common way to offset lower rates.

You are not obliged to accept an umbrella company arrangement. You can ask to be paid by the agency on a PAYE basis instead. The NEU strongly advises against limited company arrangements for supply work. Before agreeing to any payroll structure, ask for a clear breakdown of what you will actually receive after all deductions, not just the gross daily rate.

Supply teachers are entitled to paid annual leave under the Working Time Regulations 1998, equivalent to 5.6 weeks per year.

For agency workers, this has historically been one of the more confusing areas. Following a 2024 change to the regulations, agencies can now legally pay rolled-up holiday pay, meaning your holiday entitlement is added to your regular pay rather than paid separately when you take time off.

The minimum rate for rolled-up holiday pay is 12.07% of your agreed rate, and it should be clearly itemised in your payslip and Key Information Document, not simply folded into your basic rate without being identified.

If you are unclear how your holiday pay is being calculated, ask your agency for a written explanation. If the explanation is unclear or the amounts appear incorrect, the NEU’s AWR Pay Assessor tool can help you check whether you have a claim.

Day-to-day supply and long-term placements are typically paid at different rates, for practical reasons.

Day-to-day cover involves delivering pre-planned lessons with no planning, assessment, or administrative responsibilities. The rate reflects the reduced scope of the role.

Long-term placements carry the full responsibilities of the substantive post, including planning, marking, and reporting. The rate for a long-term placement should reflect this. Where a setting is employing you directly on a long-term basis, you should expect pay aligned to the appropriate STPCD point for your experience from the outset.

For agency-arranged long-term placements, STPCD alignment applies from day one if the setting employs you directly, or after the 12-week AWR threshold if you are employed through the agency.

When a setting books you directly, without an agency taking a margin, the rate they pay and the rate you receive are the same figure.

This is a meaningful difference. An agency might bill a setting £280 per day for a qualified teacher and pay the teacher £155. A direct arrangement means the setting’s budget goes directly to you, with no third party extracting a portion.

Platforms like Flexzo Teach are built on this model. You set your own rate expectations, settings can see them before making contact, and the booking is made directly. The rate agreed is the rate paid, with full transparency on both sides.

Whether the booking comes through an agency or a direct platform, these are the questions worth confirming upfront.

Getting clear answers to these questions before you start is more straightforward than trying to resolve them afterwards.

Rather than a checklist, these are the questions that tend to separate a good fit from a poor one.