Who sets school support staff pay: council, school or academy trust

For most support staff in English schools, pay is built on the NJC pay spine, which councils and unions negotiate nationally. The employer decides how to use it. In a maintained school that is the council or the governing body, and in an academy it is the trust. Each can add points, supplements or allowances. A national body, the School Support Staff Negotiating Body, is due to set minimum terms from 2027-28 at the earliest.

What the Department for Education found

The Department for Education’s July 2026 consultation response summarises what employers told it. Most respondents use the NJC Green Book as a benchmark, often with local adaptations to deal with recruitment and retention, regional pressures and operational needs. Most pay support staff on the NJC spine, again with local changes such as extra points, market supplements and regional allowances. Employers commonly rely on job evaluation, benchmarking and role profiles, balanced against budget limits and the terms staff brought with them in earlier TUPE transfers.

The same document says most support staff are currently employed on terms negotiated by the NJC, a body that covers a much wider range of local government jobs than schools. So the annual council pay round decides what school cleaners, caretakers, teaching assistants and office staff are paid. The 2026 award is 3.3% on points 3 to 43 from 1 April 2026, and the NJC pay award guide shows what that is worth.

Support staff make up roughly half of the directly employed school workforce, according to the same document. That is a large group paid through a framework built for the whole of local government, and the government wants a sector-specific body with a voice for school staff.

Maintained schools

In a council-maintained school, the employer is the local authority or the governing body, and pay usually follows the council’s grading structure. Devon County Council told schools that the 2026 award would be applied pro rata for part-time staff and backdated to April in the September 2026 pay run for maintained schools using its payroll service. That is one council’s arrangement and not a national rule.

Academies

An academy trust is the employer, and your contract or the trust’s pay policy decides which terms apply. The consultation response does not give the share of trusts that follow the NJC terms, so treat any such figure you see elsewhere with caution. Some trusts use the NJC spine as it stands and some adapt it. Staff who transferred from a council may keep their old terms through TUPE. The academies and maintained schools guide covers the wider differences.

What the School Support Staff Negotiating Body changes

The Employment Rights Act 2025 provides for a dedicated body, bringing together trade unions and employer representatives, to agree statutory minimum pay and conditions for school support staff. The consultation response describes how it will work:

• It sets floors, not ceilings. Staff on better terms keep them, staff below the minimum are brought up to it, and employers can offer more.
• Support staff are defined as people who are not teachers, are employed by a local authority, maintained school governing body or academy trust in England, and work wholly at one or more maintained schools or academies.
• Staff stay on existing arrangements for 2026-27, and improvements from the new body come from 2027-28 at the earliest.
• The first focus is on minimum terms, with changes to contracts building up year by year.
• Agency workers are not committed to at this stage, and the government will review the evidence within the body’s first year.
• Executive leaders of academy trusts, and staff covered by other national bodies, are to be excluded through secondary legislation.

The dates, definitions and guidance still depend on secondary legislation, so details can change.

What to check

• The employer named in your contract: council, governing body or academy trust.
• Whether your contract refers to the NJC or the Green Book, or to a trust pay policy.
• Your grade and spinal column point, and whether the employer uses extra local points or supplements. Teaching assistant pay shows how a typical grade is read.
• How your hours and weeks turn the full-time figure into actual pay, described in term-time-only pay.
• Any notice from your employer about the 2026 award and the date it will be paid.