Teachers by subject taught and measure (headcount, full-person equivalent (FPE) and hours)

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Local Authority
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Welsh Medium Type
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Next update expected:July 2026

Updates

31st March 2026

A revision was made to the teachers by subject taught and measure table during the transformation from the old to the new StatsWales service.

A small number of subjects were excluded from the original published table for 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24 due to mapping issues. This has resulted in a few additional records being added to the table and a small increase in the overall total figures.

27th February 2026
Dataset first published.

Main information

Designation
Official statistics
Data provider
Welsh Government
Data source
School Workforce Annual Census (SWAC)
Time period covered
September 2019 to August 2025

Overview

Summary of dataset and variables

The data covers different aspects of the school workforce in Wales, using the data collected from the School Workforce Annual Census (SWAC). This dataset shows the headcount, full-person equivalent and hours taught of subjects in local authority maintained schools in Wales, broken down by local authority, lesson medium, and measure.

Data collection or calculation

Information on subjects taught relates to a typical two-week timetable. The figures include teachers teaching delivered to pupils in years 7 and above only.

For the headcount in the subject breakdown, teachers are counted once for each subject they teach. In the total, teachers are counted once, regardless of how many subjects they teach. This means the sum of the subject breakdown will not equal the total.

For the FPE teachers are split according to the proportion of teaching time they spend teaching a particular subject. If a teacher spent half of their teaching time teaching English and half of their time teaching Drama, in the FPE, they would be counted as 0.5 against each subject and as 1 in the total. In the headcount, this teacher would be counted as 1 against each subject and 1 in the total. In the subject breakdown, the greater the similarity between the headcount and FPE, the higher the proportion of teachers exclusively teaching that subject and greater the likelihood of subject specialism.

Hours reflects the total hours taught in the two-week timetable. All three measures are directly comparable.

Updated guidance for categorising schools according to Welsh medium provision was published in December 2021. The new arrangements for categorising schools according to Welsh medium provision were introduced to help local authorities and schools to plan their Welsh medium education to support the Curriculum for Wales as well as the national goal of one million Welsh speakers, as set out in Cymraeg 2050. Published data from 2024/25 onwards uses the new categorisation system replacing the old Welsh Medium Type that is published for academic years up to 2023/24. The data is not directly comparable between the two categorisation systems.

Statistical quality

A revision was made to the teachers by subject taught and measure table during the transformation from the old to the new StatsWales service.

A small number of subjects were excluded from the original published table for 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24 due to mapping issues. This has resulted in a few additional records being added to the table and a small increase in the overall total figures.

The information collected from 2019 to 2024 have not undergone a formal final validation period. However, various stages of automated validation and sense-checking are built into the process to ensure a high quality of data to inform policy making. A final validation period is being considered to be introduced for future collections for schools and LAs to review the information they return, and re-submit their data where errors are identified prior to publication.

Rounding applied

c note code = numbers greater than zero but less than five. Teacher numbers have been rounded to the nearest 5.

Related reports

Published by

Organisation
Welsh Government
Contact email
educationworkforcedata@gov.wales