Why FE leadership roles are becoming harder to recruit for.
I believe that the Further Education (FE) sector is the UK’s most vital yet most underappreciated engine of economic and social progress. It reaches people at every stage of life, from young people who need a new direction, to adults building their careers, to those with SEND who rely on specialist support.
Colleges provide the opportunities that keep communities moving forward. FE also plays a central role in local economic planning, meeting employer demand, and shaping the skills agenda.
While the demands on the sector continue to grow, the pipeline of leaders ready to take on these roles isn’t keeping up with the need for them. Recruiting senior talent into FE, particularly Principals, CEOs and other executive roles, has become much harder. We’re seeing more colleges turn to executive search after struggling to recruit directly. They are experiencing firsthand that finding the right people now takes more time, more support, and a more thoughtful approach.
Unless the sector adapts, the impact will be felt for years to come.
So why is recruiting further education leaders harder than ever, and what needs to change?
1. The job of an FE leader has become more complex
When I talk to long-serving leaders from the sector, they tell me that being a leader in FE today is vastly different from a decade ago. It’s no longer just about being an experienced educator or a strong manager. Senior leaders are now expected to be strategists, policymakers, community voices, funding experts, and crisis responders, all at once.
They’re dealing with challenges that keep growing in size and complexity:
- Sustained pressure on funding and increased accountability to regulators
- Shifting expectations around safeguarding, wellbeing, and inclusion
- Digital transformations in teaching, learning, and operations
- The need to build employer partnerships while aligning with ever-evolving local skills needs
- Political uncertainty, devolution, and frequent shifts in national policy direction
I’ve seen firsthand how the weight of these challenges can deter many passionate and experienced candidates from stepping forward. Even those who might aspire to leadership roles often find the scale and breadth of the role to be unmanageable.
2. The senior talent pipeline in FE is shrinking
As experienced leaders retire or leave the sector, fewer people are ready to step into their place. The pipeline isn’t keeping up, and many colleges are starting to feel it.
We’re hearing from leadership teams who are struggling to identify internal successors, even when they know the potential is there. And while some are actively trying to develop future leaders, others simply haven’t had the time or resource to focus on it.
There are a few reasons behind this:
- Fewer people are putting themselves forward for senior roles, often because of the workload and pressure they’ve seen others experience
- Succession planning is inconsistent, and in some colleges, it’s still not seen as a strategic priority
- Competition is growing, with candidates being pulled into roles in higher education, corporate training, multi-academy trusts and other sectors
Recruitment now often means looking well beyond the traditional FE pool, perhaps bringing in people with governance, financial, or operational expertise from outside the sector.
It’s important not to lose sight of the positives here. Thinking differently about what leadership in FE looks like can open the door to a broader mix of experience and perspectives, which can bring fresh thinking and challenge established ways of working.
3. Pay and responsibility in FE leadership don’t match
Many FE leaders are responsible for multi-million-pound budgets, thousands of learners and staff, and the long-term direction of local skills strategies. The scale of the role is significant, yet the pay doesn’t always reflect that level of responsibility.
Salaries in FE leadership often fall below those in comparable roles in multi-academy trusts, higher education, and even middle management positions in the private sector. This is especially true in smaller colleges and specialist providers, where the pressures remain high, but the financial reward can be considerably lower.
Whilst there is evidence of rising Principal remuneration packages over the past 5 years, as reported by DfE data and FE week, FE leadership pay remains relatively low for those in smaller colleges where Principal’s may earn similar salaries to a Vice Principal or Executive Director in a larger college or college group, despite greater scope, pressure and accountability.
This creates a fundamental challenge: the expectations placed on FE leaders are growing, but the reward and support structures are not always keeping pace.
4. Burnout and scrutiny are pushing leaders out
The emotional toll of FE leadership is significant. Leaders are expected to be ever-visible, ever-accountable, and constantly adaptive, often without the wider public understanding the real impact of their college on local or regional communities.
College leaders face a frequent combination of persistent media scrutiny, high-stakes inspections and funding reviews. Alongside that sits the expectation to prioritise the welfare of their teams, often at the expense of their own. It’s no surprise that many leaders are exhausted and that mental health and burnout are real concerns across the sector.
We encourage clients to open up these conversations during the interview process to show that well-being is a priority. It can be as simple as asking:
- How do you look after yourself, so you can perform at your best?
- What support do you need around you to be at your most effective?
- How do you create space to manage the demands of leadership in a sustainable way?
- What does balance look like for you, and how can we support you in maintaining it here?
5. Leadership in FE still lacks diversity
A key consideration for us at Peridot is how we support leadership that reflects the people and communities our colleges serve. We believe that improving the diversity of leadership within the FE sector is crucial to this.
While the diversity of learners across the FE sector is something to be proud of, that diversity is still not fully represented at the executive or board level. Women, people from ethnic minority backgrounds, and disabled professionals remain underrepresented in senior roles. And while there has been progress in certain areas, the pace is slow and the barriers are still very real.
21.6% of the total FE workforce identified as ethnic minority.
Among FE leadership staff, 13.5% identified as ethnic minority in 2023/24.
Only 5% of college principals and chief executives were from non-white ethnic backgrounds.
Representation drops sharply as roles become more senior, from 21.6% workforce to just 5% at the principal level.
6. Traditional FE recruitment approaches are failing
Posting a job and waiting for the right candidate to apply rarely works anymore. The people you’re trying to reach are often not actively looking, and we regularly hear from candidates who hadn’t even been considering a move until we approached them directly. All of this means that recruitment now requires more time, more planning, and a more intentional strategy. Indeed, when I reflect on the senior leaders I have appointed over the last few years, very few were looking for their next step before I reached out to them directly.
To ensure your opportunity stands out, leadership recruitment now consists of:
- Proactive search and engagement, especially with passive candidates who may not be scrolling job boards.
- Honest, well-crafted employer branding that tells the story of the college, its impact, and its future with clarity and confidence.
- Inclusive, realistic person specifications — not lifted from previous roles but built around what the college actually needs now and in the future.
- Embedding succession planning and leadership development throughout the organisation.
- Recruitment processes that allow time to think, reflect and get the right fit, rather than rushing to appoint just to fill a vacancy.
- Looking beyond local geography to attract senior leaders from outside the region may mean offering relocation support, flexible working, or phased transition plans.
The FE sector has an opportunity to treat recruitment as the start of a longer journey that develops a pipeline of leaders who champion our colleges, our learners, and the communities they serve.
What needs to change in FE leadership recruitment
To improve leadership recruitment, FE needs to think longer term. We need to be more deliberate about how we find, grow, and support the people who will shape the future of our colleges.
Some practical steps include:
- Investing in high-quality leadership development that helps future leaders build confidence, clarity and ambition.
- Creating roles that are realistic, well supported and sustainable over time.
- Working together across institutions to share insight and build stronger peer networks.
- Making diversity a priority, not just in outcomes but in how we open up access and remove barriers to progression.
- Rethinking recruitment from the start — from how roles are defined to how they’re communicated and supported.
- Avoiding the temptation to recycle the same small talent pool just because it feels familiar.
Taking these steps helps the sector shift away from short-term thinking and towards a more sustained commitment to building and backing talent.
How Peridot supports better FE leadership recruitment
At Peridot, we understand the pressures facing colleges and the weight that comes with making senior appointments. We’ve worked alongside boards, Principals and leadership teams across the FE sector, helping them navigate the complexity and find the right people to take their colleges forward.
We don’t take shortcuts, we don’t rush the process and we don’t recycle the same old candidate lists. We take the time to get to know your people, your values, and your ambitions, because strong leadership starts with understanding what matters most to you.
If you’re grappling with any of the challenges I’ve outlined, from attracting a wider range of candidates, strengthening your succession pipeline, or rethinking how you define leadership in your college, please get in touch.
Dan Baxter is our Principal Consultant, Further Education Appointments. With his extensive experience working across the education sector with organisations that champion those who need support, Dan has been brilliantly supporting our clients to inspire the next generation ever since. You can connect with Dan on Linkedin, or send him an email.
