# How to become a teacher in the UK: QTS, PGCE, routes and funding

**How do I become a qualified teacher in the UK?** To become a teacher in England you need qualified teacher status (QTS), gained through an undergraduate degree with QTS, a postgraduate course such as a PGCE (fee-paying or salaried), a teacher degree apprenticeship, or assessment only. You need GCSE English and maths at grade 4, plus science for primary. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland train and register teachers separately.

Published 2026-09-26 by EdCitation. https://edcitation.com/newsletter/how-to-become-a-teacher-in-the-uk

To become a teacher in England you need qualified teacher status (QTS), gained through teacher training: within a degree, on a postgraduate course such as a PGCE, on a teacher degree apprenticeship, or by assessment if you already teach. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each have their own route and register. EdCitation publishes this guide; its requirements, figures and dates come from the Department for Education and each nation's official bodies, checked on 26 and 27 September 2026. It cannot promise anyone a training place, a post or a particular salary.

Training to teach also means writing referenced assignments, and that is where EdCitation comes in: [Find sources](https://edcitation.com/) searches roughly 300 million published works for free, and [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite) turns each one into a reference taken from its registered record. EdCitation writes none of a trainee's essays or applications; the thinking and the words stay yours, which is how it should be.

## What do you need to become a teacher in England?

You need QTS to teach in maintained primary, secondary and special schools, those funded by local authorities. Academies and private schools may employ teachers without it, though most prefer it, and further education and early years do not require it (Get Into Teaching, n.d.-f).

### QTS, PGCE and PGDE: which one matters?

QTS is the licence; a PGCE is an academic award that often comes with it, and a PGCE without QTS does not qualify you (Get Into Teaching, n.d.-j). The sources differ on credits: Get Into Teaching says a PGCE carries up to 60 master's-level credits and a PGDE up to 120, while Leicester's 2025-26 handbook offers up to 90, the last 30 from an optional third assignment (University of Leicester School of Education, 2025). Your provider's figure is the one that applies.

### Entry requirements

To train to teach primary or secondary in England you need GCSEs at grade 4 (C) or above in English and maths, plus science for primary, and a bachelor's degree in any subject. Some providers ask for a 2:2 or better, some accept an equivalency test, and a secondary provider may ask for a subject knowledge enhancement course if your degree is in another subject or more than five years old (Get Into Teaching, n.d.-e).

## Which route into teaching suits you?

Graduates usually take a postgraduate course, school leavers a degree with QTS or the apprenticeship, and experienced unqualified teachers assessment only. All lead to the same QTS.

| Route | How long | Fees or salary | Source |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Undergraduate degree with QTS (BA, BEd or BSc) | Up to 4 years | Tuition fee, "typically" £9,535 a year on Get Into Teaching's page; student finance | Get Into Teaching (n.d.-c) |
| Postgraduate, fee-paying (QTS, usually with a PGCE) | 9 months full-time; 18 to 24 months part-time | Up to £9,790 a year full-time or £7,335 part-time in 2026 to 2027; loans, and a bursary in some subjects | Get Into Teaching (n.d.-i) |
| School Direct salaried | 1 academic year | Unqualified teacher's salary; no bursary or student finance | Get Into Teaching (n.d.-d) |
| Postgraduate teaching apprenticeship | 9 months | Salary; no more than 80% of a full teaching load | Get Into Teaching (n.d.-d) |
| Teach First (Teach Lead Change) | 2 academic years | Salary, working towards QTS with a PGCE | Get Into Teaching (n.d.-d) |
| Teacher degree apprenticeship | About 4 years | Salary on the unqualified range; no tuition fees | Get Into Teaching (n.d.-g); DfE (2026a) |
| Assessment only | Up to 12 weeks | About £1,500 to £4,000, paid by you or your school | Get Into Teaching (n.d.-a) |
| Your first assignment's reading | As long as it takes | Free | [Find sources](https://edcitation.com/) and [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite/harvard) on EdCitation |

### Fee-paying or salaried?

Every postgraduate route includes placements in at least two schools over at least 24 weeks, even when a university runs the course (Get Into Teaching, n.d.-i). Salaried places are few, so Get Into Teaching (n.d.-d) advises applying to fee-paying courses too, and notes that a trainee due a large bursary may receive more on one, since a bursary is tax-free and a salary is not.

### The teacher degree apprenticeship

The teacher degree apprenticeship (TDA) is for people without a degree: you work in a school, earn a salary and gain a degree with QTS, studying about 40% of the time. You must be 16 or over and have lived in England for three years (Get Into Teaching, n.d.-g). That page still describes secondary maths courses "due to start in autumn 2026", and the Department for Education (2026a) funds up to 150 such trainees for 2026 to 2027. We found no official list of TDA subjects for 2027.

### Assessment only

Assessment only suits people already teaching without QTS who meet the Teachers' Standards: you need a degree, the GCSEs above and experience in two or more schools. A teaching assistant is unlikely to qualify (Get Into Teaching, n.d.-a).

## How do you become a primary school teacher?

You take a primary course leading to QTS by any route above, with GCSE science at grade 4 as well as English and maths. Any degree subject counts, and you can train in primary with a specialism such as maths (Get Into Teaching, n.d.-e). In Scotland the PGDE primary covers children aged about 4 to 12 (Teach in Scotland, n.d.-b).

## What teacher training bursaries and scholarships are there?

The Department for Education (2026a) pays tax-free bursaries of up to £29,000, and scholarships of up to £31,000, for courses starting between September 2026 and July 2027. On 27 September 2026 Get Into Teaching (n.d.-b) said the amounts for September 2027 starts would "be announced soon", so these are the latest published, not a promise.

| Subject, 2026 to 2027 | Bursary | Scholarship |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Chemistry, computing, physics | £29,000 | £31,000 |
| Maths | £29,000 | None |
| French, German, Spanish | £20,000 | £22,000 |
| Other languages, including ancient | £20,000 | None |
| Design and technology | £20,000 | None |
| Biology, geography | £5,000 | None |

A bursary needs a 2:2, a master's or a PhD and eligibility for student finance, and comes automatically. A scholarship usually needs a 2:1, is applied for through the subject body, such as the Institute of Physics, and replaces the bursary. Neither is repaid, and salaried trainees get neither (Get Into Teaching, n.d.-b). Undergraduates on secondary maths or physics QTS courses can receive £9,000 in their final year, and eligible service leavers £40,000 (Department for Education, 2026a).

## How and when do you apply for teacher training?

Postgraduate applications in England open at 9am on 6 October 2026, through the government's Apply for teacher training service: up to four at once and 15 in a year. The last date for courses starting by September 2027 is 6pm on 21 September 2027, but places go first come, first served and courses may close earlier (Get Into Teaching, n.d.-k). Undergraduate courses with QTS go through UCAS, where the equal consideration date for most 2027 courses is 18:00 on 13 January 2027 (UCAS, n.d.). Our guide to [the personal statement](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/how-to-write-a-personal-statement) covers the writing.

## What happens after you qualify?

In England you then serve a two-year induction as an early career teacher (ECT). Statutory guidance updated in June 2026 requires it for employment in a relevant school, which includes maintained schools; academies and independent schools may offer it but need not (Department for Education, 2026b).

### What induction gives you

An ECT teaches no more than 90% of a standard timetable in year one and 95% in year two, using the time for mentoring and training based on the Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework. There is no deadline to start or finish, and induction cannot take QTS away (Department for Education, 2026b). English QTS is recognised automatically in Wales (Welsh Government, 2026b).

## What does a teacher earn in England?

A qualified teacher in a maintained school outside London started on at least £32,916 from 1 September 2025, on a main pay range rising to £45,352; the inner London minimum was £40,317, and unqualified teachers started from £22,601 (Department for Education, 2025). On 1 July 2026 the government accepted rises of 3.5% from September 2026 and 3% from September 2027 (Department for Education, 2026c), and Get Into Teaching (n.d.-h) lists £34,069 outside London from September 2026, "subject to a statutory consultation period". The 2026 pay document was not yet on GOV.UK when we checked. Academies may set their own pay, so these are scale points, not an offer.

## How do you become a teacher in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland?

Each nation sets its own training, standards and register.

### Scotland

You need a four-year teaching degree or a Professional Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE), which lasts 36 weeks full-time, about half at university. Minimum entry is English at SCQF level 6, maths at level 5, membership of the Protecting Vulnerable Groups scheme and classroom experience (Teach in Scotland, n.d.-b). You then register provisionally with the General Teaching Council for Scotland and serve at least a year of induction; the Scottish Government's Teacher Induction Scheme guarantees eligible graduates of Scottish universities a one-year post (General Teaching Council for Scotland, n.d.-a, n.d.-b). Career changers on a PGDE in shortage subjects may receive a £12,500 Teaching Bursary (Teach in Scotland, n.d.-a).

### Wales

You gain QTS through initial teacher education, register with the Education Workforce Council (EWC) and complete induction. A PGCE takes a year full-time; the Open University runs part-time and salaried PGCEs over two years. You need GCSE grade C in maths and in English or Welsh, science for primary, and for secondary a degree at least 50% relevant to the subject (Welsh Government, 2026a, 2026b). Educators Wales (n.d.) lists incentives for teaching through Welsh. UCAS (n.d.) gives 15 December 2026 as the application date for 2027 PGCEs in Wales.

### Northern Ireland

You take a four-year BEd or, more commonly, a one-year PGCE, and register with the General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland, which the law requires for teaching in a grant-aided school (General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland, n.d.). You need GCSE grade C in English and maths, plus science for primary; PGCE applications go straight to the university, and accepted students are checked by AccessNI (General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland, n.d.; Department of Education, n.d.).

## A timeline from deciding to teach to your first class

We drew up this timeline at EdCitation for a graduate aiming at a postgraduate course in England from September 2027; the dates come from Get Into Teaching (n.d.-k).

1. **Now:** check your GCSEs, and spend time in a school to see the job.
2. **From 9am on 6 October 2026:** apply for up to four courses, with a personal statement you write yourself.
3. **Autumn to spring:** interviews and offers; a subject knowledge course if an offer asks for one; a scholarship application if your subject has one.
4. **When announced:** check the 2027 to 2028 bursary for your subject.
5. **Summer 2027:** student finance and your offer's conditions.
6. **By 6pm on 21 September 2027:** the final date, though popular courses close long before.
7. **September 2027:** training begins. Search for your first assignment's reading with [Find sources](https://edcitation.com/) and reference it with [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite).
8. **Summer 2028:** QTS, if you meet the standards, then two years of induction.

## How does EdCitation help with PGCE assignments?

For the reading behind a PGCE assignment, EdCitation is the strongest tool a trainee can use: each reference comes from a record a publisher registered, so none is made up, and a chatbot that writes references cannot offer that. The assignments count: Leicester awards its PGCE at level 7 only when trainees also pass a critical reflection on classroom practice and a small-scale classroom research project (University of Leicester School of Education, 2025).

### What Find sources returned

On 27 September 2026 we searched [Find sources](https://edcitation.com/) for "feedback in the primary classroom": the answer came from Crossref, with 1,129,860 records in total. The first result was a 2016 dissertation, "Feedback for learning: a mixed methods study in the upper primary classroom" by Cameron David Brooks. We pasted the DOI of a 2018 article from the same list into [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite/harvard), and the Harvard reference it returned read:

Roslan, R. *et al.* (2018) 'Teacher's feedback in teaching science in a bilingual Bruneian primary classroom', *On the Horizon*, 26(2), pp. 122–136. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1108/oth-09-2017-0080.

### Which style will your provider use?

It depends on the provider. UCL's initial teacher education library guide teaches Harvard, with an example for an Ofsted report (UCL Library Services, 2026); Birmingham Newman uses its own Newman Harvard for most courses (Birmingham Newman University Library, 2026); Cambridge's Faculty of Education uses APA 7th (University of Cambridge Faculty of Education Library, 2026). Cite a source formats in both, [APA 7](https://edcitation.com/cite/apa) and the Cite Them Right version of Harvard, so set its output beside any house rules. [Verify references](https://edcitation.com/verify-references) then checks a finished list and flags retractions; all three tools are free with no account. The books trainees cite are in [education books for teacher training](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/education-books-for-teacher-training); for a different profession, read [our nursing careers guide](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/how-to-become-a-nurse-in-the-uk).

## Quick questions

### Do you need a PGCE to be a teacher?

Not in England: you need QTS. A PGCE often comes with QTS and adds master's-level credits, but a PGCE without QTS does not make you a qualified teacher.

### How long does it take to become a teacher in the UK?

About nine months full-time on an English postgraduate course, then two years of induction. A degree with QTS takes up to four years; a Scottish PGDE takes 36 weeks, then a year of induction.

### Can you become a teacher without a degree?

Not a qualified school teacher in England, but a degree with QTS or a teacher degree apprenticeship gives you both.

### Is School Direct still a route?

Yes, as a salaried route listed by Get Into Teaching. Trainees earn an unqualified teacher's salary and get no bursary.

### Can EdCitation write my PGCE assignments or application?

No. EdCitation locates real, published work through [Find sources](https://edcitation.com/) and sets out the reference for it; the assignment, the application and every sentence in them stay your own.

## References

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