Department For Education
Payments you can claim
You may be eligible for early-career payments if you teach one of the following subjects:
- chemistry
- languages
- mathematics
- physics
Find out if you are eligible for an early-career payment, or another additional payment.
When to apply and payments
You need to apply at different times depending on:
- the subject you teach
- which academic year your initial teacher training (ITT) course started (postgraduate) or finished (undergraduate)
Teachers can apply from September in the 2022 to 2023, 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025 academic years.
You may also be entitled to an uplift payment.
Early career payment amounts depend on when your ITT course started (postgraduate) or finished (undergraduate)
Subject | ITT course start or finish | Academic years to apply | Amount |
---|---|---|---|
Maths | 2018 to 2019 | 2021 and 2023 | 5,000 |
Maths | 2019 to 2020 | 2022 and 2024 | 5,000 |
Maths | 2020 to 2021 | 2022, 2023 and 2024 | 2,000 |
Physics | 2020 to 2021 | 2022, 2023 and 2024 | 2,000 |
Chemistry | 2020 to 2021 | 2022, 2023 and 2024 | 2,000 |
Languages | 2020 to 2021 | 2022, 2023 and 2024 | 2,000 |
The academic year runs from 1 September to 31 August.
Eligibility criteria for teachers
You must meet the eligibility criteria to be able to claim any additional payments.
Between September 2022 and January 2023, you will be able to answer some questions to find out what additional payments you are eligible to claim. Even if you are eligible to claim more than one type of additional payment, you will only be able to claim one additional payment per academic year.
Learn more about what additional payments are available.
Qualifications
You will be eligible if you started a postgraduate initial teacher training (ITT) course or completed an undergraduate ITT course in the following subjects and academic years:
- mathematics in the 2018 to 2019, 2019 to 2020 or 2020 to 2021 academic year
- physics, chemistry and languages in the 2020 to 2021 academic year
Postgraduate ITT includes:
- university-led and school-led courses like the Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE)
- School Direct ITT
- School Centred ITT (SCITT)
- Teach First
- Postgraduate teaching apprenticeship
Undergraduate ITT includes:
- Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree with qualified teacher status (QTS)
- Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree with QTS
If you were awarded QTS through assessment only or overseas recognition in academic years 2018 to 2019, 2019 to 2020, or 2020 to 2021, you will also be eligible.
QTS and QTLS
You must have either :
- QTS
- qualified teacher learning and skills (QTLS) status and membership of the Society for Education and Training (SET)
Employment
You must be employed as a teacher in a state-funded secondary school in England when you apply for the payment. State-funded secondary schools include:
- local authority-maintained secondary schools
- academies, free schools or multi-academy trusts
- special schools (local authority-maintained or non-maintained)
This includes middle-deemed secondary schools.
You must:
- have started your induction before applying for your first early-career payment
- have completed your induction before applying for subsequent early-career payments (or completed at least one year of your induction for those that completed their ITT in the 2020 to 2021 academic year)
- have spent at least 50% of your contracted hours allocated to teaching one or more of the eligible subjects at the time of the application
Supply, private school and sixth-form college teachers
If you are a supply teacher, you must:
- be employed directly by the school to be eligible
- have been working for at least one term before applying
You cannot come from a private agency.
If you teach in a private school or sixth-form college, you are not eligible.
Part-time teachers
If you are a part-time teacher, you are eligible for the same early-career payment amounts as full-time teachers.
You still need to meet the same eligibility criteria in full.
Breaks in teaching
You are allowed to have some breaks in your normal employment which include:
- sickness, maternity, paternity, parental or adoption leave
- annual leave
- time between unfair dismissal and an employee being reinstated
- military service, for example with a reserve force
- temporary lay-offs
Performance
You must not currently be subject to any:
- formal performance measures as a result of continuous poor teaching standards
- disciplinary action
Local authorities with uplift payments
You will need to teach in an uplift area at the time you apply to be eligible for an uplift payment.
All payments of 5,000 increase to 7,500 in an uplift payment area.
All payments of 2,000 increase to 3,000 in an uplift payment area.
The local authorities are:
- Barnsley
- Blackpool
- Bracknell Forest
- Bradford
- Coventry
- Derby
- Doncaster
- Dudley
- East Riding of Yorkshire
- Halton
- Isle of Wight
- Kingston Upon Hull, City of
- Kirklees
- Knowsley
- Leicester
- Liverpool
- Luton
- Middlesbrough
- Milton Keynes
- North Lincolnshire
- Northumberland
- Nottingham
- Oldham
- Peterborough
- Portsmouth
- Reading
- Rochdale
- Salford
- Sandwell
- Sefton
- Sheffield
- St. Helens
- Stoke-on-Trent
- Swindon
- Tameside
- Telford and Wrekin
- Walsall
- Warrington
- Wolverhampton
Payments and deductions
Number of payments
The Department for Education makes the payment in one lump sum.
You can only claim one additional payment in each academic year, even if you are eligible for more than one type of additional payment.
For example, if you are eligible for both the levelling up premium and early-career payments you can only claim one of these additional payments in the same academic year.
However, if you are eligible to claim back your student loan repayments, you will be able to claim this as well as a levelling up premium payment or early-career payment.