Nursery World - Nearly half of settings lack staff, finds research

Recruitment difficulties are still ‘rife’ across the early years sector, with one in two settings lacking staff, new research has found.

Data company Ceeda says there are 24,600 unfilled vacancies across private and voluntary-run nurseries and pre-schools in England, at 45 per cent of all those settings surveyed.

Over half of these (12,580 posts) are for staff with level 3 qualifications. A further 4,180 vacancies are for apprentices.

Ceeda surveyed a ‘representative research panel’ of 366 PVI settings between July and August 2017 as part of its About Early Years data project.

Both level 3 qualifications and apprenticeships have been hit by recent policy changes. Critics of the Government’s apprenticeship reforms say that not enough funding is available for the youngest apprentices after it was revealed that only 15 per cent of apprentices taken on across all sectors since May of this year have been aged 16 to 18.

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