Members of Scotland's largest teaching union have overwhelmingly voted to accept a new pay offer.

Teaching unions put in a pay claim for a 6.5% rise in January, and unanimously rejected a 2% rise from August 2024 with a further 1% in May 2025.

A new offer was tabled by COSLA earlier this month after teaching unions had set a deadline to avoid a formal dispute being declared.

The offer comprised a 4.27% rise backdated to 1 August and which covers the 2024-25 pay year, to the end of July 2025, and the EIS recommended that its members accept.


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On Wednesday it was announced that 95% of members voted in favour of accepting the offer, with 5% voting against.

Convener of the EIS salaries committee, Des Morris, said: “Following months of negotiations, employers tabled an improved 4.27% pay offer to all teachers last week. The EIS salaries committee met to discuss the offer, and agreed that it was the best offer that could currently be achieved through negotiation. The committee then unanimously agreed to put the offer to our members, with a recommendation that it should be accepted.

"Our members have weighed up the offer over the past week, and have now voted overwhelmingly to agree with the recommendation of the salaries committee in that the offer should be accepted. As a result of this very clear mandate from our members, the EIS will now take this position to accept the offer into tomorrow’s Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT) meetings.”

EIS General Secretary Andrea Bradley said: “EIS members have voted decisively to accept this 4.27% pay offer. The offer, which comes after a long period of negotiation, is above both the CPI and RPI measures of inflation, is undifferentiated across all pay grades, and marks an important first step on the road towards restoring the real-terms pay of Scotland’s teachers to pre-austerity levels.

"This offer, which was achieved without the need to declare a dispute or engage in any form of industrial action, will provide some welcome pay stability for our members over the coming year.

"With the matter of pay now heading towards conclusion, the attention of the EIS will remain on the other pressing matters facing teachers – including the declining numbers of teachers employed across Scotland, most markedly at present in Glasgow, the lack of permanent teaching posts for many newer entrants to the profession, and the crippling levels of workload which continue to be imposed on teachers in schools right across the country.”