UK School Leadership Under Pressure

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Ross Morrison McGill founded @TeacherToolkit in 2007, and today, he is one of the ‘most followed educators’on social media in the world. In 2015, he was nominated as one of the ‘500 Most Influential People in Britain’ by The Sunday Times as a result of…
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Are UK school leaders burning out faster than ever before?

New research reveals leadership has become less desirable and more unsustainable across UK schools.

School leadership pressure points

Published in September 2025, the Sustainable School Leadership: UK Survey Report (Perry et al., 2025) draws on data from school and college leaders (n = 1,624) across England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

The study unpacks what helps or hinders long-term leadership, raising timely questions about school inspections, workload, and headteacher recruitment.

This study, conducted by researchers at the Universities of Nottingham and Warwick, compares the lived experience of school leadership across different UK nations, providing a full-spectrum view of working conditions, wellbeing, aspirations, and professional development needs.

The findings reveal a profession under intense pressure, where leaders spend most of their time on admin and student welfare—far less on curriculum or teaching. Alarmingly, 29% say they “never really intended to be a head – it just happened.”

Only 26.6% of English leaders find inspections useful. Nearly half feel burnt out “often” or “all the time.”

This is more than workload—it’s a cultural crisis. Leaders are surviving, not thriving. Scotland reports the lowest wellbeing scores, while leaders in special schools report the highest.

Inspection and Inequality

My journey through special measures echoes throughout this research. For many, school inspections are a catalyst for career exits. The illusion of Ofsted glory continues to undermine trust, burn out leaders, and erode mental health—particularly in England, where leaders feel most unsupported by inspection processes.

When visiting schools across the UK, I hear the same stories:

Headteachers in deprived communities feeling isolated, swamped by safeguarding, and squeezed by funding constraints. The ‘hero headteacher’ myth—succeeding against all odds—is no longer romantic; it’s harmful.

The research also exposes troubling patterns: men are more likely to plan for headship, women more likely to fall into it. “Ethnic minority leaders show strong aspiration but face greater barriers—discrimination, under-representation, and fewer role models”, with the current system potentially reinforcing inequality (see below chart).

Teachers and school leaders can use this research to initiate honest conversations.

Credit: Perry et al., 2025

Rethinking school leader leadership culture

Schools must audit leadership sustainability: Is there time for curriculum leadership? Space for protected CPD? Proper coaching into headship? Are deputies and middle leaders supported with structured conversations into headship through coaching, not just pressure? These are the questions I asked myself as a deputy head, juggling workload, family life, and public visibility.

How far away are we from pushing back on narratives that reward suffering? For example, I used to proudly share that I worked over 80 hours a week, accepting it as the norm instead of challenging what was going wrong? We should be celebrating sustainable leadership.

Use this report to hold system leaders accountable. If only one in four headteachers finds inspections helpful, what will it take for policymakers to listen?

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