School support staff in Wales 'struggling' to make ends meet

South Wales Argus

20-05-2025

The workers met with the Low Pay Commission this week in a meeting organised by public services union Unison as the body gathers evidence to decide the next potential rise in the minimum wage.
Research from UNISON Cymru has revealed the struggles school support staff are facing, including working a second job or being unable to get a loan for buying a car because their wages aren't high enough. Some are even on benefits because their wages are too low to sustain themselves. More than two-fifths, or 46 per cent, of support staff have reported having to borrow money just to stay afloat.
Angharad Simpson, a school support worker from Blaenau Gwent, said: 'Paying the bills is a challenge each month'.
She added: 'It shouldn't be like this. We don't enter the profession thinking we're going to become rich, we just want to be fairly rewarded'.
Unlike heads and teachers who are paid year-round, school support staff are only paid for term-time, excluding the summer holidays and other half terms. This means they are only paid for nine months of the year, but this is disguised as 12 payments averaged out over the year.
Chair of the UNISON Cymru school support staff forum, Sara Allen, noted the current crisis of schooling in Wales. 'Years of underfunding for schools and below inflation pay awards for staff have created a recruitment and retention crisis in Welsh schools. People are put off from jobs in schools because they know they can find better wages working in supermarkets.'
The union want to ease the recruitment and retention crisis in education by aiming for a special negotiating body set up for school support staff in Wales.