UCL Webinar: Beyond the Paycheck: Small Class Sizes, Wellbeing Perks, and Work-Life Balance Can Attract Teachers

Online Seminar Series on “Education Policy and Research in International Perspective”. We are very excited to share that the next talk in this term will take place on 12 May (14:00-15:00 UK time) by Dr Burak Sonmez, a Lecturer at UCL Social Research Institute.

This study investigates the job attributes that make teaching roles more attractive to educators, with a particular focus on addressing recruitment and retention challenges in schools. Drawing on five large-scale paired-profile conjoint experiments involving approximately 10,000 teachers across England, we estimated the relative importance teachers assign to various job features by analysing their choices between hypothetical job advertisements. To complement these findings, we conducted a parallel experiment with over 700 headteachers to assess their perceptions of policy proposals and implementation feasibility. Qualitative data, including focus groups and open-ended survey responses, informed our instrument design and provided deeper insight into the practical realities schools face when adapting job roles. Together, the findings based on a series of large-scale experiments offer a comprehensive and policy-relevant understanding of teacher job preferences, leadership perspectives, and the structural conditions shaping the education labour market.