A second teaching union in England has vowed to strike if the Government fails to compensate schools in full for next year’s teachers’ pay award.

The NASUWT union’s annual conference voted to reject any pay offer from the Government that did not top up school budgets in June’s spending review, and to ‘move immediately to ballot members for industrial action’.

The vote means the NASUWT and the National Education Union (NEU), which together represent the bulk of England’s teaching workforce, are poised to strike if Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, cannot secure additional funding to match the 2025-26 pay award.

Last week, at its annual conference, the NEU agreed to launch a formal ballot on strike action if the Government’s pay offer for teachers remained ‘unacceptable’ and was not fully funded in the spending review.

Any decisions on pay will hinge on the recommendations of the independent School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB), which have yet to be published.

The Department for Education (DfE) has told the STRB it favours a 2.8% wage increase, but the NEU and the NASUWT want an above-inflation pay rise and full compensation for school budgets so that pay increases do not force cuts to be made elsewhere.

Dan Lister, the NASUWT’s junior vice president, told delegates in Liverpool: “The Government’s recommendation to the STRB for a 2.8% partially-funded pay award is not acceptable.

“The Government’s recommendation makes it clear that efficiencies will need to be made. We know what this means. It means restructures, it means redundancies, members losing their jobs, and children losing their teachers.”

Patrick Roach, the NASUWT’s general secretary, added: “We know that the Government has been handed the pay review body’s latest report and we hope that the pay review body has been ambitious in putting forward recommendations that will address the ongoing recruitment and retention crisis.”

If the spending review fails to top up school budgets, the two unions are likely to hold formal strike ballots among their members in the summer, setting the scene for potential school closures in the autumn term.

In a video address to the NASUWT conference on Saturday, Phillipson told delegates: “The toughest financial inheritance in a generation has meant that we’ve already had to take some incredibly-difficult decisions, and I’m afraid that more are still coming.”