Welsh Teacher Induction and the NQT Year Explained

If you trained in England and are looking at jobs in Wrexham or Newport, or trained in Wales and are looking at jobs across the border, the induction differences are the ones most likely to cause a genuine, expensive misunderstanding — more so than pay, because pay differences are at least visible on the advert. Induction differences are invisible until you are in them.

They are also invisible in most of the coverage. English education media reports induction reform as though it were UK-wide policy, and the shift from NQT to ECT in September 2021 was so thoroughly reported that many people on both sides of the border believe NQT is simply an old word. In Wales it is the current word for the current system, and that system differs from England's in length, in terminology, in structure, in who runs it, in what you are assessed against, and in whether it can be finished early.

Wales says NQT, England says ECT

The terminology is the first thing to get straight, because everything else follows from it.

England changed its language in September 2021, when it extended statutory induction from one year to two and built the Early Career Framework around it. A teacher in either year of that two-year period became an Early Career Teacher. NQT, in England, now refers only to people who completed induction under the pre-2021 arrangements. Our ECT pay guide covers the English side in full.

Wales made no such change. Welsh Government guidance on Hwb, EWC material, regional consortia handbooks and Welsh school job adverts all continue to say Newly Qualified Teacher. The person who supports you is an induction mentor, which is a different role from England's induction tutor and mentor split. The body that signs you off is the Appropriate Body, a term both nations use but for differently constituted organisations.

This causes concrete problems. A Welsh-trained teacher searching English job boards for "NQT jobs" finds a thinning stock of stale listings. An English recruiter reading a Welsh CV that says "completed NQT induction 2024" may misread it as pre-2021 experience rather than a current Welsh qualification. And a teacher moving either way who assumes the systems are the same will be wrong about the length, the protected time, the training programme, the regulator and the standards.

One year, not two

The Welsh induction period is three school terms, or the equivalent. England's is two full academic years. That is the single largest difference and it cascades into everything else.

A one-year induction means a Welsh teacher is a fully inducted, unqualified-by-nothing classroom teacher at the start of their second year in post. An English teacher at the same stage is halfway through a statutory process, still on a reduced timetable, still completing a prescribed training programme, and still subject to formal assessment. Whatever you think of the merits, the lived experience of year two is not comparable.

Induction in Wales must also be completed within five years of gaining QTS. That is a generous window, and it exists precisely because Welsh induction can be accumulated in sessions across non-continuous employment rather than having to be served in unbroken terms.

The 380-session rule and the 110-session floor

Wales counts induction in sessions, and this is the mechanical detail that makes the rest of the system work.

A session is a full morning, or an afternoon, of teaching in a school. Three school terms is the equivalent of 380 sessions. The minimum induction period is one term, or 110 sessions.

Counting in sessions rather than terms has three consequences that a term-based system cannot deliver.

• Induction accumulates across non-continuous employment. Any teaching session of half a day or longer in an eligible setting counts, so a career that starts with a patchwork of fixed-term and supply work still builds toward induction rather than stalling.
• Part-time work is handled natively. There is no need for a separate full-time-equivalent conversion rule, because the unit of account is already a half-day of teaching rather than a period of elapsed time.
• Reduction has a precise floor. 'One term' is an ambiguous quantity when a teacher works three days a week. '110 sessions' is not, which is what makes the acceleration route administrable.

The acceleration route England doesn't have

Here is the provision worth crossing a border for, or at least worth knowing about before you choose one.

The Appropriate Body has discretion to reduce the length of the induction period for NQTs who can demonstrate that their teaching practice meets the Professional Standards in less than three school terms. The reduction cannot take the period below one term — 110 sessions — but within that, the Appropriate Body can shorten it.

England has nothing comparable. English induction can be extended — automatically where absences in an induction year total 30 days or more, or discretionarily at the end where an ECT has not had a fair opportunity to demonstrate the standards — but it cannot be shortened for strong performance. Two years is two years.

That gap — roughly eighteen months between the fastest possible Welsh route and the only English route — is a genuine competitive difference in a cross-border labour market, and it is almost never mentioned in recruitment material on either side.

10% throughout, not 10% then 5%

Welsh schools must provide NQTs with 10% non-contact time to undertake induction activities, and the guidance is explicit that this is separate from ordinary planning, preparation and assessment time. It runs at 10% for the whole induction period.

England tapers: 10% in the first induction year and 5% in the second, plus the ordinary PPA entitlement.

Add the totals up and the two systems are not wildly apart in aggregate protected time. The difference is in distribution and in what it signals. Wales concentrates support into a single intensive year and then treats you as a full colleague. England spreads it across two years at declining intensity. A common complaint about the English model is precisely that second year, when protected time halves to 5% while timetable, tutor group and responsibility expectations rise toward those of an established teacher. The Welsh model does not create that particular squeeze — though it front-loads the pressure into a shorter, sharper year instead, which is its own kind of demanding.

Mentor and external verifier, not a provider programme

This is the deepest structural difference, and the one that says most about how each nation thinks new teachers learn.

England built its reform around a national curriculum for early career development. The Early Career Framework — renamed the Early Career Teacher Entitlement from September 2025, with the underlying entitlements unchanged — is a prescribed two-year programme of content, typically delivered through a DfE-approved lead provider, running alongside the school's own induction support. The content is national; the delivery is largely outsourced; the school hosts.

Wales built its model around people in and around the school. There are two roles.

The trade-off is genuine in both directions. England's model guarantees every ECT in the country access to the same evidence-informed content regardless of how good their school happens to be at developing teachers — a real equity argument, and the main justification for the reform. Wales's model keeps the professional judgement inside the profession, with an external check, and does not require an NQT to complete a national programme alongside learning to do the job. Which you prefer probably depends on how much you trust the average school to develop a new teacher unaided, and how much you think a prescribed curriculum adds on top of a good mentor.

EWC registration comes first

An NQT in Wales must hold QTS and must register with the Education Workforce Council in the category of school teacher before their statutory induction period can commence. This is a precondition, not paperwork to catch up on.

The EWC is Wales's independent regulator for the education workforce, covering school teachers, further education teachers, learning support workers, work-based learning practitioners and youth workers. It maintains the register, handles fitness-to-practise, administers the induction system, and holds the Professional Learning Passport.

There is no English equivalent. England abolished the General Teaching Council for England in 2012 and did not replace it with a registration body; teacher misconduct in England is handled by the Teaching Regulation Agency, but there is no register English teachers must join and no annual fee they must pay. So a teacher moving from England to Wales encounters a registration requirement that simply does not exist where they came from, and a teacher moving the other way stops being on any register at all.

Registration is annual and runs on a tax-year basis from April to March. At the time of writing the school teacher fee was £45, with an increase to £46 proposed; the fee is the same whether you work full-time, part-time or proportionally, and a registrant in more than one category pays only the highest single fee. Fees are set by regulations and have been politically contested in Wales, so check the current figure with the EWC. Where a professional registration fee is not reimbursed by your employer it may attract tax relief — see our teacher tax relief guide for how to claim.

The new Professional Standards from September 2026

Welsh induction is assessed against the Professional Standards, and those changed in the month this page was written.

Wales launched revised professional standards for assisting teaching, teaching and leadership in September 2026, replacing the professional standards for teaching and leadership that had been in force since September 2017. The revised suite spans the whole career, from those assisting teaching through classroom teaching to school leadership, headship and system leadership — a single coherent framework rather than separate documents for separate stages.

Which set applies to an individual NQT depends on when their induction started:

Two features are worth knowing. First, the standards are hosted online on Hwb with interactive features — hover-over definitions, references and terminology in context — rather than issued as a static PDF, which is a deliberate choice about how they are meant to be used. Second, the Welsh Government has been unusually explicit that the descriptors "are not meant to be read or used as a checklist, scorecard or spreadsheet", and are designed to prompt professional exploration rather than tick-box verification. If your induction mentor is running your induction profile as a compliance exercise, that is not what the standards are for.

Supply teaching and induction

Wales is markedly more accommodating than England here, and for a new teacher struggling to find a permanent post it is one of the more practically valuable differences in this whole comparison.

Because Welsh induction is counted in sessions, NQTs undertaking induction via short-term supply work can accrue sessions towards induction. The categories are defined: a long-term supply placement is one of 11 or more consecutive days; short-term supply is up to a maximum of 10 consecutive days. NQTs on day-to-day supply are supported by an external mentor rather than an in-school induction mentor, and must log all their sessions. The external verifier role for short-term supply NQTs is funded via the EWC.

In England, induction ordinarily has to be served in a post lasting at least one term, which is why day-to-day supply generally cannot count toward it at all. An English NQT who cannot find a post with a term's duration is stuck; a Welsh NQT in the same position is accumulating sessions. Our supply teacher pay guide covers the pay side of supply work across both nations.

Assessment, appeals and what happens if you fail

The induction mentor makes the recommendation; the Appropriate Body makes the decision.

The Appropriate Body must reach its pass or fail decision within 20 working days of the end of the induction period. An NQT who is unsuccessful may appeal to the EWC within 20 working days of being notified. That the appeal goes to the regulator rather than to the government department or a separate appeals body is a small but telling detail: in Wales, the body that holds your registration is also the body that hears your induction appeal, which makes the process more coherent than England's equivalent.

The consequence of failing induction is serious in both nations, and it is the same consequence: a teacher who fails statutory induction cannot be employed as a qualified teacher in a maintained school. This is not a matter of a mark on a record. If you are told at any point that your induction is at risk, that is the moment to involve your union, not after a decision has been made.

What an NQT in Wales is actually paid

Welsh induction has no pay scale of its own — being an NQT is a professional status, not a pay grade — but the Welsh main pay scale is shaped differently from England's in a way that affects new teachers specifically.

Wales shortened its main pay range after devolution and kept the existing point labels, so the Welsh scale runs M2 to M6: five points, with M2 as the entry point for a newly qualified teacher. England runs M1 to M6, six points. A Welsh teacher reaches the top of the main range after four increments; an English teacher needs five.

Two things follow. A Welsh NQT starts on a higher cash figure than an English ECT on England's national rate — though not higher than an ECT on an English weighted London rate, and none of England's weighting bands extend into Wales. And progression to the top of the classroom scale is one increment shorter. Our Wales pay scales guide has the full tables and the honest caveats about which Welsh 2026/27 figures are confirmed and which are provisional.

Pay progression and induction also run on separate tracks in both nations. Completing induction does not itself move you up the scale, and being mid-induction does not freeze you on the entry point.

Crossing the border in either direction

• QTS travels; induction may not. QTS is recognised across England and Wales without being re-earned. Statutory induction is a separate process run by different bodies to different lengths, and you should not assume completed induction in one nation discharges the requirement in the other.
• Get it in writing from the receiving Appropriate Body. Before accepting a cross-border post mid-induction, ask the Appropriate Body in the nation you are moving to — not the school — exactly what will be recognised. Published guidance on both sides is written for teachers staying put.
• Register with the EWC if you are moving to Wales. It is a precondition of starting induction and there is no English equivalent you will have been through.
• Expect different standards. Welsh induction is assessed against Wales's Professional Standards, not England's Teachers' Standards. The evidence you have been gathering may need reframing.
• Check the pay point, not the point label. M2 means an entry-level teacher in Wales and a second-year teacher in England. Reading 'M4 to M4' as a like-for-like move is a common and costly error.
• Your pension is unaffected. The Teachers' Pension Scheme covers England and Wales as one scheme. Moving across the border does not interrupt, transfer or change your membership in any way.

Side-by-side summary

Honest gaps

How often the reduction is granted. The discretion to shorten induction to 110 sessions is clearly stated in guidance. How frequently Welsh Appropriate Bodies exercise it, on what evidence, and with what consistency between regions is not published anywhere we could find. It is a real route; we cannot tell you it is a common one.

The current mentor funding figure. Welsh Government funds both the NQT's 10% timetable reduction and induction mentor release time, administered through the EWC and claimed termly by schools via an induction claim form. The specific per-NQT amount published in the guidance we could access related to an earlier academic year, so we have described the mechanism rather than quote a figure that may have moved. Ask the EWC for the current year's rate.

Cross-border recognition of part-completed induction. Neither nation's published guidance addresses squarely what happens to a part-served Welsh induction when a teacher moves to England, or the reverse. We are not going to fill that gap with inference. Get it in writing from the receiving Appropriate Body.

Sources

• Induction: what are the requirements — Hwb, Welsh Government — the source for the three-term period, the 110-session minimum, the definition of a session, the 10% non-contact entitlement, the EWC registration precondition, and which Professional Standards apply by start date
• Induction for newly qualified teachers in Wales — Hwb, Welsh Government — the source for the 380-session equivalence, the five-year completion window, the induction mentor role, the supply-teaching categories, the 20-working-day decision and appeal windows, and the funding arrangements
• What is induction? — Education Workforce Council — the EWC's role, registration requirement and the online induction profile shared between NQT, mentor, external verifier and Appropriate Body
• Revised professional standards for assisting teaching, teaching and leadership — GOV.WALES — the September 2026 launch, the online Hwb hosting, the explicit rejection of checklist use, and the autumn 2026 consultation on revised QTS standards for September 2027
• Changes to the statutory induction of newly qualified teachers: integrated impact assessment — GOV.WALES
• Apply to register — Education Workforce Council — registration categories, the tax-year fee basis and the current fee
• ECTE and ITTECF — National Education Union and Induction for early career teachers (England) — GOV.UK — the English two-year induction, the 10%/5% taper and the September 2025 renaming of the ECF to the Early Career Teacher Entitlement