Improve funding, pay & professional recognition for the Early Years workforce

Increase government funding of Early Years settings, and introduce national frameworks related to pay, career progression and professional recognition to ensure greater alignment with educators and teachers in wider educational settings.

Early Years Teachers and practitioners support children’s learning, development, wellbeing, safeguarding and school readiness, requiring specialist skills and knowledge. Many in private and independent settings face low pay, limited progression and poor recognition due to insufficient funding. Improved funding, a national pay framework, and formal recognition as educators would support staff retention and quality outcomes for children especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

We are confident that through Our Best Start in Life Strategy we will lay the foundation for long-term change including recognising the critical role that early years educators play and creating more opportunities to enter the profession, gain higher qualifications, and build fulfilling careers.

We want a career in early years to be something that people are proud to be part of and something that is rewarding to pursue. We are championing early years teachers, with the aim of having a teacher in every setting. We are significantly increasing the number of funded training places on Early Years Initial Teacher Training, introducing a new Early Years Teacher Degree Apprenticeship route and introducing an annual £4,500 early years teacher financial incentive in the most disadvantaged areas.

Early years educators are crucial to ensuring children with SEND get the best start in life. Our reforms will give them the training, evidence-based tools and expert input they need — including a dedicated early years offer within the 3-year £200 million national training package, new identification and intervention tools through the National Inclusion Standards, and expert advice from health and education professionals through the new Experts at Hand offer.

Through the Inclusive Early Years Fund, we are providing an additional £47 million in 2026-27 to support the early years sector to become more inclusive of children with SEND, as part of the 3-year £1.6 billion Inclusive Mainstream Fund. This is on top of the above inflation increase to early years entitlements funding rates announced in December 2025. We will also consult later this year on further reforms to simplify funding streams and support earlier intervention.

We are raising skill levels by funding high-quality training for educators and leaders – including free online child development training, more places on the National Professional Qualification in Early Years Leadership and investing in evidence-based interventions in early maths and language. We are also doubling the number of Early Years Stronger Practice Hubs, so even more settings and childminders can access free, evidence-based resources and training to help improve their practice.

We know recruitment and retention is a challenge for settings and staff across the sector. Early education and care is delivered by a vibrant, mixed market, the majority of which are private, voluntary and independent providers who set their own rates of pay.

In 2026/27, we expect to provide over £9.5 billion for early years entitlements, more than doubling the government’s commitment to funded childcare since 2023/24. This will fund a full year of the expanded entitlements and an above inflation increase to funding rates. On average nationally, we are increasing the 3- and 4-year-old hourly funding rate by 4.95%, the 2-year-old hourly funding rate by 4.36% and funding rate for the 9 months to 2-year-old entitlement by 4.28%.

These increases also continue to reflect in full forecast cost pressures on the early years sector, including National Living Wage increases announced at Autumn Budget 2025. To go further, we will review early years funding, including the national funding formulae, and consult the sector on the changes by summer 2026.

From April 2026, we are also increasing the minimum pass-through requirement, meaning local authorities must pass on at least 97% of funding to providers, to maximise funding reaching early years settings. It is then up to those providers how they choose to spend this funding.

Department for Education