The Telegraph has reported the DfE’s free service to promote vacancies as a threat to the business model of organisations like TES, which has existed since 1910. The DfE’s service aims to save schools £75 million each year. I’m sceptical that schools spend so much money, so I decided to see if I could find it.
Today, TES is a web of companies ultimately owned by the US-based Providence Equity Partners. TES reported a turnover of just under £100 million last year. If all their income came from subscribers like me who pay £54 a year, they would have 1.9 million subscribers. This is equivalent to every teacher in England having four subscriptions!
To understand an organisation’s priorities, it is helpful to look at the staff they employ. TES are not really in the business of publishing a magazine, as the table below shows. Just one in ten of their team are editorial – most work in sales and marketing.
| Group | 2020 headcount | 2019 headcount |
| Editorial | 69 | 52 |
| Sales and marketing | 438 | 268 |
| Technology | 131 | 91 |
| Operations | 90 | 104 |
| Administration | 90 | 98 |
| Total | 818 | 613 |
Clearly, TES are not making their money from magazines.1 Helpfully, they break down their income into four services they provide to schools. One number stands out: £58 million.2
| Activity | Year ended 31 August 2020 £ | Year ended 31 August 2019 £ |
| Attract | 58,185,000 | 60,765,000 |
| Train | 14,057,000 | 9,563,000 |
| Empower | 15,194,000 | 11,344,000 |
| Supply | 12,028,000 | 16,578,000 |
| Total | 99,464,000 | 98,250 |
£58 million. That was the income from advertising vacancies last year. Most of this, £42 million, came from a subscription model where schools pay for unlimited advertising. TES has successfully transitioned more and more schools away from one-off adverts towards this model over the past few years.
TES has a smart business model. The ‘attract’ part is generating the cash to fund the strategic acquisition of other digital services like Educare, which it acquired in 2019 for £12 million. TES aims to expand these new businesses to their existing customer networks.
School leaders will ultimately decide if they want to pay TES and other recruiters so much when there’s a good free option from the DfE. I’ve previously described how I think trusts should lead the way in transitioning towards the DfE’s Teaching Vacancies site.
If trust leaders need another incentive, they might like to know that the highest-paid director at TES received average emoluments of £450k in each of the past five years (£728, £236, £485, £310, £494k).
Elsewhere, TES has routinely highlighted excessive executive pay…
Footnotes
1. TES reports that they have 15,000 subscribers, but note that multiple readers use each subscription, suggesting that some are institutional subscribers who pay more. If they all paid £54 a year like me, TES would generate almost £800,000 income through this approach, which should mean a magazine is still viable.
2. Not all of the £58 million comes from schools in England. The accounts do not breakdown by country, but reports from previous years indicate that England remains their most important market, followed by Australia.