Teaching professionals

How to become a special and additional needs education teaching professional

Official title: Special and additional needs education teaching professionals

Also called: Special needs tutor, Special needs teacher, Special needs coordinator, Special needs educationalist, Special educational needs teacher, Special educational needs coordinator, Additional learning needs coordinator, Aba tutor, Deputy head, Art teacher, Sen teacher, House master

Special and additional needs education teaching professionals organise and provide instruction at a variety of different levels to children who have emotional, behavioural or learning difficulties or physical disabilities. These professionals may also work with exceptionally gifted pupils.

Main tasks

Creates a safe, stimulating and supportive learning environment for students
Assesses student’s abilities, identifies student’s needs and devises curriculum and rota of teaching duties accordingly
Gives instruction, using techniques appropriate to the student’s disability
Develops and adapts conventional teaching methods to meet the individual student’s needs
Encourages the student to develop self-help skills to circumvent the limitations imposed by their disability
Prepares, assigns and corrects exercises to record and evaluate students’ progress
Supervises students in classroom and maintains discipline
Liaises with other professionals, such as social workers, speech and language therapists and educational psychologists

How to become one

Entry is with a first degree that provides QTS (qualified teacher status) or, in Scotland, TQ (teaching qualification); or other relevant degree followed by further postgraduate training (most commonly PGCE – Postgraduate Certificate in Secondary Education, or, in Scotland, PGDE – Professional Graduate Diploma in Education). Additionally, prior experience in mainstream teaching is usually required, and further training for special needs teaching may be mandatory. A DBS check is mandatory

Ways in

University: Arts & Humanities degrees, Offered by 27 universities in the UK
University: Education & Teaching degrees, Offered by 25 universities in the UK

Pay · Outlook

Median full-time pay: £47,432 a year The middle half earn £36,845 to £52,484.
About 79,100 people work in this job now, and about 86,300 are projected by 2035. (+9%)

Questions people ask

How do I become a special and additional needs education teaching professional?

How much does a special and additional needs education teaching professional earn in the UK?

Median full-time pay is £47,432 a year (Office for National Statistics). The middle half earn £36,845 to £52,484.

Is a special and additional needs education teaching professional a growing career in the UK?

Yes. Employment is projected to grow 9% by 2035, from about 79,100 to about 86,300 people (Department for Education).

Do you need a degree to become a special and additional needs education teaching professional?

Usually. 79% of people in this job hold a bachelor's degree or higher.

Sources

Office for National Statistics: Annual Population Survey: employment by occupation (April 2025 to March 2026), OGL v3.0, retrieved 2026-10-03
Office for National Statistics: SOC 2020 Volume 1: structure and descriptions (2026-08-27 edition), OGL v3.0, retrieved 2026-10-03
Department for Education: Skills Imperative 2035: employment projections by occupation (2021 to 2035 (Warwick IER / Cambridge Econometrics)), OGL v3.0, retrieved 2026-10-03
Office for National Statistics: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, Table 14 (2025 provisional), OGL v3.0, retrieved 2026-10-03

Updated 2026-10-03

Graduate outcomes: Discover Uni dataset, HESA (www.hesa.ac.uk), licensed under CC BY 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0). Aggregated by subject and adapted by Peernovo.