A supply teacher can receive three completely different payslips depending on how they are engaged, and each type raises different questions. Work directly through a local authority pool and you get a plain daily-rate PAYE payslip with familiar deductions. Work through a private agency on PAYE and there is a margin hidden somewhere in the rate. Work through an umbrella company and your payslip may show employer National Insurance being deducted from your assignment rate before your own gross pay is even calculated - a cost that confuses almost everyone who first sees it. This guide explains all three routes.
Median UK pay around £31,500 - SOC 2313 - typical tax code 1257L
Educational estimates only. Not tax, legal, financial, payroll, pension or employment advice. Not affiliated with HMRC or any employer. Always verify with your payroll team, HMRC or your pension provider before acting.
Three routes, three different pay arrangements for supply teachers
The School Teachers Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD) governs the pay of teachers employed directly by maintained schools. It requires a qualified teacher to be paid at least the minimum of the main pay range for their experience. However, STPCD applies to the school as employer - when a private agency is the legal employer, STPCD does not bind it. An agency can pay below STPCD minimum rates, and many do, particularly for day-to-day supply cover. The result is that a supply teacher's actual daily rate can vary considerably depending on the route.
A local authority supply teacher pool places teachers directly with schools, with the LA acting as employer. This route generally follows STPCD and pays on the main pay range (M1 to M6) or, for experienced teachers, the upper pay range (UPS 1 to 3). The following are 2025/26 figures for England outside London (published by the STRB): MPS ran from approximately £31,650 at M1 to £43,685 at M6; UPS ran from roughly £45,646 to £49,084. These are 2025/26 STPCD figures - confirm current 2026/27 values against the latest STPCD published by the Department for Education. Those annual rates convert to a daily equivalent by dividing by 195 working days.
A private agency employs the teacher directly and places them in schools. The agency charges the school a higher daily rate and pays the teacher a lower rate, with the difference covering employer NI, agency profit margin and administration. STPCD minimum pay requirements do not apply to the agency as employer, so rates can be lower than LA pool rates, particularly for short-notice bookings. Always ask for a written statement of the daily rate and confirm how holiday pay is calculated before accepting a placement.
An umbrella company is used by some agencies as an alternative payment model. The umbrella becomes the worker's employer of record. The agency pays the umbrella a total assignment rate. The umbrella then deducts its own employer National Insurance, the Apprenticeship Levy and its margin from that rate before arriving at the supply teacher's gross pay. What appears as "gross pay" on the umbrella payslip is therefore lower than the assignment rate the school is paying - the difference is the employment costs the umbrella carries. This is legal but genuinely confusing, and supply teachers frequently believe they are being underpaid when in fact the deductions are the employer's costs passed through to them.
What a Supply Teacher payslip looks like
For a supply teacher on a plain LA pool or agency PAYE payslip, the structure is simple: a daily rate or weekly earnings in the payments block, PAYE tax, employee NI and, if eligible, a Teachers Pension Scheme or auto-enrolment deduction in the deductions block. The Teachers Pension Scheme (TPS) applies if the employer is an eligible TPS employer - LA pools and maintained schools qualify; private agencies do not automatically qualify.
An umbrella payslip works differently. At the top, it typically shows the assignment rate or contract value - the total amount the agency has paid the umbrella for your work. From this the umbrella deducts employer National Insurance at 15 percent on earnings above the secondary threshold (the rate rose from 13.8 percent in 2024/25 to 15 percent in April 2025, and the secondary threshold fell to £5,000 a year at the same time), the Apprenticeship Levy at 0.5 percent of the assignment value above £15,000 a year, and the umbrella margin (typically £15 to £25 per week). The figure remaining after these deductions is your gross pay, against which your own PAYE tax and employee NI are calculated.
A worked umbrella payslip showing an assignment rate of £150 per day may produce a gross pay figure of around £125 to £130 after the employer costs are stripped out. Tax and NI are then calculated on that lower gross. Your take-home from a £150 daily rate through an umbrella is therefore meaningfully less than from a £150 daily rate on direct PAYE with the same employer NI costs handled separately. This is not fraud - it is the employment-cost-passthrough model - but it is important to understand.
Year-to-date figures on a supply payslip are only complete for that employer. If you have worked across LA pools, agencies and umbrella companies in the same tax year, you will have multiple sets of year-to-date figures from different employers. At year end, HMRC reconciles your total income and tax from all sources using your P60s from each employer.
Supply Teacher pay bands (UK 2026/27)
Gross figures reflect typical national pay-scale and ONS ASHE 2024 levels. Net figures are a simplified estimate using 2026/27 PAYE bands. It assumes 5% of qualifying earnings (£6,240–£50,270) under a net-pay arrangement, so the contribution comes out of gross pay before income tax but not before National Insurance. Your real pension rate and tax code may differ - see the pension section below.
| Band | Gross / year | Net / year | Net / month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lower (25th percentile) | £24,000 | £20,089 | £1,674 |
| Median | £31,500 | £25,189 | £2,099 |
| Upper (75th percentile) | £39,000 | £30,289 | £2,524 |
Pay and additions on a Supply Teacher payslip
- Daily rate (direct PAYE or LA pool)Confirm this against the booking confirmation before the payslip arrives. The STPCD main-scale daily rate is the annual salary divided by 195 working days; an LA pool will state the applicable scale point. Two risks to check: that a half-day rate has not been applied to a full day, and that a cover-supervisor rate has not been substituted for a qualified-teacher rate.
- Assignment rate (umbrella payslip only)This is the gross sum the agency paid the umbrella for your work - not your pay. It appears at the top of the payslip and everything else is derived from it. Knowing this figure is essential because it is the only way to verify that the employer NI, Apprenticeship Levy and umbrella margin deductions are arithmetically correct before your gross pay is struck.
- Employer NI deduction (umbrella only)From April 2025, the employer NI rate rose from 13.8 percent in 2024/25 to 15 percent and the secondary threshold fell to £5,000 a year - both changes increasing the employer NI cost that umbrella companies pass through. Umbrella companies deduct this cost from the assignment rate before calculating your gross pay. The Apprenticeship Levy (0.5 percent of pay above the £15,000 annual allowance) is also typically passed through. These deductions are the most common cause of confusion and complaints.
- Holiday payFor agency and umbrella-employed supply teachers, holiday pay is either rolled up into the daily rate (paid with each payslip as a 12.07 percent addition labelled separately) or accrued and paid at specified times. From April 2024 rolled-up holiday pay is lawful again for irregular-hours workers, for leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024. Regulation 16A(2) makes it an option the employer may take rather than a default, and where it is taken it must be itemised separately on the payslip. Check whether the rate quoted by the agency is inclusive or exclusive of holiday pay.
- Teachers Pension Scheme or auto-enrolmentTPS membership depends entirely on the employer type. LA pools and direct-school employment carry TPS entitlement. Private agencies are generally not TPS employers. Umbrella companies are not TPS employers. If you are placed through an agency or umbrella, you will likely be enrolled in the umbrella's auto-enrolment workplace pension instead - a defined-contribution scheme, not TPS. This affects your long-term pension very significantly.
- Long-term supply uplift or leadership allowanceIf you cover a management role or work in the same school continuously for four or more weeks, some agencies will renegotiate the rate. Check whether your booking confirmation and payslip reflect any agreed uplift for extended cover.
Teachers Pension Scheme continuity: what breaks it and how to protect it
The Teachers Pension Scheme (TPS) is a defined-benefit career-average scheme. Employee contributions are tiered by annual salary rate. The full set of tier bands in force from 1 April 2026 is: 7.4 percent on salary up to £36,198.99; 8.9 percent up to £48,727.99; 9.9 percent up to £57,776.99; 10.5 percent up to £76,572.99; 11.6 percent up to £104,413.99; and 12 percent above that. The six rates are unchanged from 2025/26 and only the breakpoints moved, by the 3.8 percent September CPI figure. That is the table Teachers' Pensions publishes at teacherspensions.co.uk, and the same one the site's own Teachers' Pension Scheme guide carries. Your payslip should show the TPS deduction as a named line if you are in a TPS-eligible employment. Confirm the tier against your annual salary rate, not just the amount paid in the current period.
For supply teachers, TPS membership is only available while the employer is an admitted TPS employer. Local authority pools and maintained schools are eligible; private agencies and umbrella companies are not. Every day worked outside a TPS-eligible employer is a day not building TPS pension. Short gaps in TPS membership - for example, a summer holiday between LA contracts - do not damage accrued rights, but longer periods with agency-only or umbrella work mean those weeks build no defined-benefit pension at all.
If you value TPS membership, request a supply placement through your LA pool or a school that employs you directly, even if the daily rate is marginally lower than an agency rate. The value of TPS membership typically outweighs a modest rate difference over a career. If you have left and rejoined TPS, contact Teachers Pensions to confirm that your service records are linked correctly - gaps and re-joins are a common source of errors in the TPS record.
Deductions on a Supply Teacher payslip
- PAYE income tax. Calculated on a week 1 or month 1 non-cumulative basis at the start of a new engagement if no P45 has been received yet, which overtaxes in the short term. Once HMRC issues a cumulative code, tax is corrected automatically. Always submit a P46 or use the HMRC starter checklist to speed up the process.
- Employee National Insurance. Class 1 NI at 8 percent on earnings between the primary threshold and upper earnings limit, then 2 percent above. For supply teachers with variable weekly pay, deductions swing considerably. High weeks above the upper earnings limit attract the 2 percent rate on the excess; very quiet weeks may produce no NI at all.
- Teachers Pension Scheme or workplace pension contribution. Either a TPS deduction at the tiered rate for your salary band, or an auto-enrolment workplace pension contribution at the minimum 5 percent of qualifying earnings. Never both. Confirm which scheme you are in by the name shown on the payslip. If it shows a generic pension provider rather than Teachers Pensions, you are in auto-enrolment, not TPS.
- Umbrella margin. The umbrella company's service fee, typically £15 to £25 per week. It reduces your gross pay and therefore reduces your taxable earnings. It is not separately recoverable through tax relief - it is simply a cost of the employment model.
- Employer NI (umbrella only, shown as deduction from assignment rate). Legally the umbrella company pays employer NI, but it funds that cost by deducting it from your assignment rate before your gross pay is set. It is not an employee deduction in the conventional sense, but it reduces your take-home. From April 2025 the rate rose to 15 percent (up from 13.8 percent in 2024/25) and the secondary threshold fell to £5,000 annual pay, making the passthrough cost larger than before April 2025.
Common supply teacher payslip errors
The mistakes that genuinely show up on this role's payslips, and how to spot them.
Your supply teacher payslip checklist
- 1.Confirm the daily rate on each payslip matches the booking confirmation
- 2.Check whether the rate is inclusive or exclusive of holiday pay, and that holiday pay is separately itemised
- 3.If using an umbrella, find the assignment rate and check the employer NI deduction is at 15 percent (from April 2025)
- 4.Check the umbrella margin is the amount you agreed when signing up
- 5.Confirm whether the pension deduction is for TPS or an auto-enrolment scheme
- 6.If you are in a TPS-eligible post, check the contribution tier against the current-year TPS tier table at teacherspensions.co.uk for your salary rate
- 7.Submit a P45 to every new employer immediately to avoid emergency tax codes
- 8.After the tax year ends, collect P60s from all employers and use the HMRC Personal Tax Account to check total tax paid
- 9.Contact Teachers Pensions each April to confirm your cumulative service record is complete
A worked example comparing LA pool and umbrella routes for the same week
Consider a supply teacher working five days in a week. Through a local authority pool paying on the main pay range, a teacher at the lower end of the scale might receive a daily rate in the region of £160 to £175 per day - the exact figure is the applicable STPCD annual salary divided by 195 working days; confirm the current 2026/27 STPCD values at gov.uk. For illustration, take a daily rate of £165. Gross for the week is £825. A main-range salary rate at the lower end sits below the £36,198.99 top of the first tier, so TPS at 7.4 percent deducts about £61.05. Tax and NI are calculated on the remainder. This is a straightforward PAYE payslip.
The same teacher working the same week through an umbrella company receives a different payslip structure. Note: in this route the agency charges the school a higher day rate and pays the umbrella a larger assignment rate to cover employer employment costs. For illustration, assume an agency assignment rate of £175 per day - £875 for the five days. This is a higher nominal rate than the LA pool, as is typical, because the umbrella and agency costs are embedded in it. Employer NI at 15 percent is deducted on earnings above the weekly secondary threshold - roughly £116 for the week on this assignment rate. The Apprenticeship Levy adds around £4.30. The umbrella margin adds £20. Total employment costs deducted from the assignment rate: roughly £140. The worker's gross pay is therefore around £735 - and TPS does not apply, so auto-enrolment pension (5 percent of qualifying earnings) takes a further deduction. Even with a higher nominal assignment rate, net take-home from the umbrella route may be only marginally better, or no better, than the lower LA rate on direct PAYE with TPS. These figures are illustrative only; your actual rates and costs will differ.
The gap narrows but does not close if the umbrella rate is higher than the LA rate - agencies often offer a higher nominal daily rate precisely because they know the passthrough costs reduce the take-home. Use the free PayslipIQ checker to model your own comparison, and always verify actual figures with your agency, umbrella or LA payroll team.
Depends how you are engaged
Agency workers and the twelve week qualifying period and supply teacher pay
The registry records three routes into a supply payslip and only the private agency one starts a qualifying period. Your hirer is the school, or the trust that legally owns it, and that is the whole question in supply: the official guidance uses your job as its own example, saying that where two schools are separate legal identities the period begins again and where they are one entity it carries on. A term of daily cover in one school passes twelve weeks around half term. The School Teachers Pay and Conditions Document never binds the agency, but what the school would pay a teacher it recruited itself becomes the measure once the period is complete.
- Qualifying period
- 12 continuous calendar weeks
- Rights that start on day one
- Regulations 12 and 13
Educational only. Whether this reaches your own pay turns on your contract and how you are engaged, and tribunal and claim time limits are short. Check the limit that applies to you before relying on a date.
Agency workers and the twelve week qualifying period: the rates, the payslip lines, what goes wrong and the 23 primary sources. The Agency Workers Regulations 2010 (S.I. 2010/93), in force 1 October 2011, with pay between assignments contracts abolished on 6 April 2020 and the tribunal time limit extended on 1 October 2026.
Supply Teacher payslip questions
Why does my umbrella payslip show employer National Insurance being deducted?
Umbrella companies are your legal employer. They must pay employer NI on your earnings - from April 2025 that rate rose to 15 percent (up from 13.8 percent in 2024/25) and the secondary threshold fell to £5,000, so the cost increased relative to previous years. Rather than absorbing this cost, umbrella companies deduct it from the assignment rate before calculating your gross pay. This is a legal arrangement but it means your take-home from a 150 pound agency day rate through an umbrella is less than from a 150 pound day rate on direct PAYE.
Do I keep Teachers Pension Scheme membership when I go supply through an agency?
Only if the employer is a TPS admitted employer. Local authority pools and maintained schools are eligible; private agencies and umbrella companies are not. Working through an agency means you accrue no TPS pension for that period and are instead enrolled in a defined-contribution auto-enrolment scheme. Over a career this difference is substantial.
Why am I on an emergency tax code at the start of every supply placement?
When a new employer has no P45 from your previous employer, HMRC typically issues a non-cumulative emergency code until they receive your details. This overtaxes you in the short term. Give your new employer your P45 as soon as you receive it, or complete the starter checklist on HMRC's website to tell HMRC about the new employment promptly.
Is my agency obliged to pay me at least the STPCD minimum rate?
Not if the agency is your legal employer. STPCD applies when a school is your direct employer. Private agencies and umbrella companies are not subject to STPCD minimum rates. They must pay at least National Minimum Wage, but can pay below STPCD minimums. If you want STPCD protection, seek work through a local authority pool or ask the school to hire you directly.
How is holiday pay calculated on supply teacher pay?
For irregular-hours workers from April 2024, rolled-up holiday pay at 12.07 percent of regular pay is the standard approach. It must be separately itemised on the payslip. Check whether the daily rate your agency quotes includes holiday pay or adds it on top - the difference can be significant over a year of busy supply work.
I worked for three agencies this year. How do I check my total tax?
Collect P60s from each employer after the tax year ends. Log into your HMRC Personal Tax Account to see whether HMRC's records match. If you have been overtaxed across multiple employers with non-cumulative codes, you may be due a refund. HMRC usually issues a P800 tax calculation after the year end, but you can claim proactively through your Personal Tax Account.
The bottom line
The pension question is the one that matters most over a career. Days spent in an LA pool or a direct school placement build defined-benefit TPS service; days on agency or umbrella do not. If TPS continuity matters to you, the route you choose has consequences that dwarf any short-term rate difference. Beyond that, the daily payslip checks are straightforward: rate versus booking confirmation, holiday pay as a separate labelled line, and the correct tax code for the placement type. For umbrella workers, the single most important number is the assignment rate at the top of the payslip - everything else is derived from it.
Use the free PayslipIQ checker to model any route and compare take-home. PayslipIQ provides educational guidance only and is not a substitute for employment, tax or pension advice. Take pension questions to Teachers Pensions directly and employment queries to your union or a qualified adviser.
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Salary estimates: ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) 2024, full-time gross annual pay by SOC 2020 occupation. Figures rounded to nearest £100. PayslipIQ provides educational information and estimated calculations only. It does not provide tax, legal, financial, payroll, pension or employment advice, and is not affiliated with HMRC, the NHS or any employer. Always verify your pay, tax code, deductions and pension with your employer's payroll team, HMRC or your pension provider before acting.