FE Pay Rise 2026/27: AoC Recommends 3.5%

If you've landed here searching for "FE pay rise 2026/27" expecting a confirmed percentage the way you might for school teachers, the answer has two parts. There is now a recommended figure, 3.5%. But it isn't a confirmed pay rise, and that is structural. Further education pay isn't set by one annual process with a fixed end point. It's decided college by college, informed by a recommendation a national employers' body negotiates with five unions but can't actually impose. This page tracks the current round specifically — what's been claimed, funded, recommended and balloted — rather than re-explaining the whole structure of FE pay, which our FE lecturer pay explained guide already covers in full.

Like our tracker for the schools pay round, this is a living page rather than a one-off article: it's updated as genuine developments happen, with the log above showing what's changed and when. Treat everything below as a snapshot taken on the date shown, not a permanent record.

Where things stand right now

The 5 October recommendation comes from FE Week's report, which we read directly. When we then checked the AoC's own newsroom, the pay statement we could reach was still the 17 July one, so we have not been able to confirm the effective date or the exact wording from the AoC itself. If you're reading this later, check the AoC's newsroom and your own college before assuming anything below is still current.

Why FE pay isn't set like schools' STPCD

School teacher pay runs through the School Teachers' Review Body (STRB), which recommends a figure to the Secretary of State, who accepts, rejects or modifies it — covered in full on our schools STRB tracker. Whatever's accepted becomes part of the statutory School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document, applying automatically to every maintained school.

Colleges left that system on incorporation, 1 April 1993, and have never rejoined it. Each is its own employer under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. Above that sits the National Joint Forum, where the AoC negotiates with five unions — GMB, the NEU, UNISON, Unite and UCU, the largest for lecturers specifically — to produce an annual recommended figure. Nobody involved disputes what that word means in practice: Institute for Fiscal Studies research on 166 colleges found that in three years the AoC recommended 1%, just over 40% actually paid it.

The 2026/27 round, step by step

The claim. On 31 March 2026, the five unions submitted a joint claim: 10% or £3,000, whichever is greater, described as a first step against roughly fifteen years of real-terms decline, alongside asks for pay parity with schools within three years, an FE starting salary matched to the school starting salary, and binding-bargaining talks to begin by January 2027.

The warning. At the first Forum meeting on 10 June 2026, the AoC said it couldn't yet make an offer and signalled any recommendation was likely to be low. That became public on 18 June, when a joint letter from the AoC, UCU and UNISON to the Education Secretary was reported, warning that without more funding "a very low pay award, possibly zero" might be the limit of affordability — an unusual moment, since it's rare for an employers' body to co-sign a warning like that with unions.

The funding. On 1 July 2026 — the same day the Government accepted the STRB's 3.5% schools award — it announced £485 million for FE pay over two years: £120 million in 2026-27, £365 million in 2027-28, explicitly to help colleges match the schools' rise. A week later, the specific mechanism landed: the 16-to-19 funding rate rose 3%, from £5,105 to £5,256, reversing an earlier 0.5% rise that had triggered the original warning.

The deferral. The Forum met again on 3 July and published a joint statement on 17 July, welcoming the £485 million while recording that employers still see it as insufficient to close the pay gap, and the unions' view that all of it should go toward pay. The parties agreed to reconvene in September, once colleges' own funding was confirmed, when the AoC expected to present an actual recommendation. The recommendation followed on 5 October.

The recommendation. On 5 October 2026 the AoC recommended 3.5% for college staff, after talks with the five unions, matching the schools' award. It encouraged colleges in a favourable financial position to "go beyond" it. UCU General Secretary Jo Grady said it falls "way short" and does not make up for years of below-inflation awards or remedy the pay gap with schools; NEU and UNISON said they would consult members before deciding next steps.

Pay award vs the retention incentive — don't conflate them

Two separate FE-specific payments get mixed up easily because both surface in the news around similar times and both target the same underlying problem: making FE teaching more competitive on pay.

In practice: the AoC's 3.5% recommendation says nothing about whether the Targeted Retention Incentive continues, because the DfE runs it separately. And receiving the incentive doesn't mean you've had "this year's pay rise" — it's an additional, subject-specific payment on top of whatever your college decides. See our Targeted Retention Incentive page for eligibility and the current subject list.

Is there strike action over the 2026/27 claim?

Not yet confirmed, but the machinery is running. On 11 September 2026, UCU's Further Education Committee agreed to run a national ballot on an aggregated basis — votes pooled across England rather than counted branch by branch — over pay, binding bargaining and workload. It's reported as the first ballot of its kind in UCU's FE history, with a five-week window due to close before the end of the autumn term, putting a result no earlier than mid-October.

The reason this format matters is visible in last year's dispute. UCU's 2025/26 ballot was conventionally disaggregated, requiring the legal 50% turnout threshold to clear separately in each college branch. It cleared nationally overall, but produced an actual mandate at only 32 of roughly 70 branches — and just 17 colleges struck, over three days in January 2026. Pooling the vote removes that branch-by-branch hurdle, which is exactly why UCU is trying it this time.

How this compares with schools' confirmed 3.5%

On the schools side, the position is settled: the STRB's 36th Report was accepted in full on 1 July 2026 — 3.5% on all school pay and allowance ranges from 1 September 2026 (5% at the bottom of the unqualified range), with a further 3% confirmed for September 2027, now written into the statutory STPCD. The confirmed 2026/27 starting salary for a qualified school teacher outside London is £34,069 at M1 — not in question the way any FE equivalent currently is.

On the FE side, the AoC has now recommended the same 3.5%, but it does not carry the same legal weight. The unions' own claim measured itself against the schools figure, asking for parity within three years, and the Government's stated purpose for the £485 million was to help colleges "match" it. So 3.5% is the number FE staff may see, without being a number they are guaranteed to receive — and a matching recommendation would, on the IFS's historical figures, still be paid in full by less than half of colleges.

What this means if you work in a college

• Don't wait for one announcement day. The recommendation is out, but there's no fixed date when a 2026/27 figure becomes official for everyone — it depends on your own college deciding what to do with it, possibly weeks or months later.
• Ask your college and your union rep directly. Whether your employer has a track record of applying AoC recommendations in full varies enormously, and no national figure answers that for you.
• Treat the AoC recommendation and the UCU ballot result as two separate stories. One is what colleges are asked to pay; the other is what happens if they don't.
• Check the Targeted Retention Incentive separately if you teach a shortage subject — it runs on its own timetable, unconnected to this round.
• Your pension isn't affected by this uncertainty. Colleges participate in the Teachers' Pension Scheme by law, on identical terms to schools — see our FE and the TPS page.
• Bookmark this page rather than one news article. June to October 2026 each captured a different stage of the same process — the update log above is the fastest way to see what's changed.

Sources and accuracy

The 2026/27 claim is from the joint trade unions' Further Education England pay claim, submitted 31 March 2026. The June warning and the joint AoC, UCU and UNISON letter are from FE Week's coverage of 18 June 2026. The £485 million announcement is from the Government's statement of 1 July 2026. The Forum's 3 July meeting and 17 July joint statement are from the AoC's own newsroom. The 16-to-19 rate rise is from the Government's confirmation of 8 July 2026. The UCU aggregated ballot decision of 11 September 2026, and the 2025/26 ballot's 32-branch mandate and January 2026 strikes, rest on FE Week and UCU's own reporting, treated as reported rather than independently verified beyond that. The 5 October 2026 recommendation, its 3.5% figure, the £120 million and £365 million funding split and the union reactions are from FE Week's report of that date. The confirmed schools figures are from the Government's acceptance of the STRB's 36th Report. The fuller 2025/26 AoC timeline and the IFS compliance findings are sourced in detail on our FE lecturer pay explained page and not repeated here.

This page's central limitation is timing: it describes a negotiation still open when written. The recommendation is confirmed from FE Week's report but we could not confirm its effective date from the AoC's own newsroom, and our statement that no UCU ballot result existed as of 9 October 2026 is a claim about an absence. If that has changed by the time you read this, the update log above is where it shows up first. This is independent guidance for orientation, not employment or financial advice, and isn't affiliated with the Association of Colleges, UCU, the DfE or any other union.