The Datum Report

Occupation 2317 · Professional occupations

Teachers of english as a foreign language

Half of full-time teachers of english as a foreign language in the UK earn more than £37,514 a year, and half earn less.

Teachers of English as a foreign language teach students to speak and write the English language, either for the first time or building on their existing knowledge.

How people enter it

There are no pre-set academic entry requirements, however, many employers may require you to have a Teaching English as a Foreign Language course. TEFL courses require students to be 18 and to have a good level of English. A DBS check may be required.

What the work involves

• teaches English as a foreign language and assists in the tuition of foreign languages
• plans and prepares language lessons and materials
• encourages conversations in English to improve students confidence and understanding
• sets and marks tests and gives feedback on student's performance
• organises students' participation in cultural activities and social events

Also called

TEFL · English as a second language teacher · ESOL tutor

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for teachers of english as a foreign language, full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Year-on-year change

The change from each year to the next, in per cent, computed from the figures in the chart above — so the two cannot disagree.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 2 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

Classified alongside this

Further education teaching professionals · Higher education teaching professionals · Nursery education teaching professionals · Primary education teaching professionals · Secondary education teaching professionals · Special and additional needs education teaching professionals · Teaching professionals n.e.c.