The government is paying for free recruitment advertising for schools across Essex.

The Department for Education (DfE)’s free job search and listings service, Teaching Vacancies, which launched in April 2019, has been signed up to by 60 per cent of the county’s schools.

The service is designed to help schools fill teaching vacancies by enabling them to advertise teaching roles free of charge.

Teaching Vacancies was developed in response to demand from headteachers’ to address the expenditure of up to £75 million that was being spent on teacher recruitment advertising.

Schools can post on the service directly and monitor the success of their job adverts.

Essex is one of the 12 ‘opportunity areas’ in the East of England the DfE is working with for the scheme.

A DfE spokesperson said: “This is a good time to be a teacher in the East of England. We are delighted with the uptake of Teaching Vacancies and the positive impact this promises for our schools. If schools and job seekers continue to use the service, we can change the way recruitment happens in schools and make a real difference where it matters most.”

School standards minister Nick Gibb added: “Almost three-quarters of schools in the East of England have signed up to our Teaching Vacancies service, enabling them to advertise all of their teaching vacancies completely free of charge.

“This is just one of the ways that the government is helping schools to make the most out of their funding so they can maximise the money they have to spend in the classroom, building on the £14 billion we are investing in schools over the next three years.”