Teacher Burnout Statistics 2026

Important Teacher Burnout Statistics

Teacher burnout has reached crisis levels globally, with Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and beyond all recording alarming rates of stress, mental health deterioration, and workforce attrition.

These statistics matter because they reveal a profession under systemic strain — with direct consequences for student outcomes and education system sustainability.

Burnout Rates and Scale

• K-12 teachers have the highest burnout rate of any profession in the United States, with 44% of K-12 workers reporting they "always" or "very often" feel burned out — 14 percentage points above the 30% average across all other industries. [1]
• Within the K-12 workforce, teachers are the most burned out subgroup, with 52% reporting frequent burnout. [1]
• A 2024 RAND survey of nearly 1,500 K-12 teachers found 60% say they are burned out, and 59% experience frequent job-related stress. [2]
• 67% of National Education Association members describe teacher burnout as a "very serious" problem, while 90% consider it at least "somewhat serious." [3]
• 64% of higher education faculty report burnout — 69% among women and 71% among gender minority faculty, compared to 57% of men. [4]
• 82% of public school teachers say the overall state of K-12 education has gotten worse in the past five years, while only 20% expect improvement over the next five. [2]
• K-12 teacher enthusiasm about their job plummeted from over 60% in 2010 to just 20% by 2020. [4]

Australian Teacher Mental Health

• A 2025 UNSW Sydney study of nearly 5,000 Australian teachers found that 90% reported moderate to extremely severe levels of stress — close to four times the national norm. [5]
• More than two-thirds of Australian teachers experienced moderate to extremely severe symptoms of depression and anxiety — more than double the national averages. [5]
• Using the validated DASS measure, Australian teachers' average scores for depression, anxiety, and stress fell in the "extremely severe" range — three times higher than national norms for depression and nearly four times higher for stress. [5]
• A 2023 Black Dog Institute survey of over 4,000 Australian teachers found that 52% reported moderate to extremely severe symptoms of depression, compared to 12.1% in the general population. [6]
• 46.2% of Australian teachers reported anxiety symptoms, versus 9% in the general population; 59.7% reported stress symptoms, versus 11.4% in the general population. [6]
• 60% of teacher absences in the previous month in the Black Dog Institute survey were due to a mental health or emotional problem. [6]
• 68.8% of Australian teachers described their workload as "largely or completely unmanageable" — the primary predictor of depressive symptoms and turnover intentions in the UNSW study. [5]
• Teachers in rural and remote areas, and female teachers, reported disproportionately higher rates of depression and intention to leave. [5]

Global Prevalence of Mental Health Conditions

• A scoping review of 70 studies covering 143,288 teachers found that moderate-to-severe burnout prevalence ranged from 25% to 74% globally. [7]
• Clinically significant anxiety in teachers ranged from 38% to 41.2% in high-quality studies; depression ranged from 4% to 77%. [7]
• Between 86% and 90% of teachers identified as burned out also met diagnostic criteria for a depressive disorder — mainly major depression (85%). [7]
• A meta-analysis of 54 pandemic-era studies found 62.6% of teachers reported stress, 59.9% depression, and 36.3% anxiety. [7]
• In a 2025 UK survey of 14,000 teachers, 62% reported stress affects them more than 60% of the time, and 75% said they frequently cannot switch off from work-related thoughts at home. [4]
• In Canada, a 2024 survey of 780 high school teachers found emotional exhaustion prevalence of 76%, depersonalization at 23%, and reduced personal accomplishment at 30%. [4]
• 66.6% of primary school teachers across 15 Chinese cities reported burnout in a 2022 survey of 3,199 teachers. [4]
• In Europe, 24% of teachers report their job negatively impacts their mental health; in Belgium and Portugal, this figure exceeds 50%. [4]
• Teachers are 40% more likely to experience anxiety symptoms than healthcare workers, 20% more likely than office workers, and 30% more likely than workers in other fields. [3]

Top Sources of Job-Related Stress Among Teachers

• Managing student behaviour is the single biggest source of stress for teachers, cited by 45% of teachers as a top-three stressor. [8]
• Low salary is the second most cited stressor, named by 37% of teachers. [8]
• Administrative work outside of teaching was cited by 33% of teachers. [8]
• Working too many hours was cited by 26%, supporting students who lost instructional time by 25%, and supporting student mental health and wellbeing by 23%. [8]
• 45% of K-12 teachers overall — and 66% of new teachers — said managing student behaviour was the most stressful part of their job in a 2024 RAND survey. [2]
• 87% of K-12 teachers report that low pay is a moderate or serious concern. [4]

Workload and Working Hours

• Full-time Australian classroom teachers worked an average of 53.7 hours per week in 2022; middle leaders averaged 55.3 hours and senior leaders 58.6 hours — all well above the standard 38-hour week. [9]
• 50% of full-time Australian classroom teachers reported undertaking more than 24 hours of face-to-face teaching per week, exceeding EBA-mandated maximums. [9]
• The proportion of Australian teachers spending 10 or more hours per week on administrative tasks grew from 11% in 2019 to 16% in 2022. [9]
• 70% of Australian teachers reported having unmanageable workloads in the Black Dog Institute survey, with 76.9% reporting teacher shortages in their schools. [6]
• 70% of US K-12 teachers say their school is currently understaffed, making their workload harder to manage. [4]
• K-12 teachers reported working nine hours per week more than comparable working adults, and only 41% are satisfied with their total weekly hours. [2]
• 54% of K-12 teachers say it is very or somewhat difficult to achieve work-life balance, and 8 in 10 say they don't have enough time in their regular workday to complete everything required. [2]
• 74% of women teachers say they find teaching to be overwhelming extremely often or often, compared with 49% of men. [2]

Workforce Retention and Attrition

• In Australia, 46.8% of teachers were considering leaving the profession within the next 12 months in 2023 — up from 14% in 2021. [6]
• 35% of the Australian teacher workforce reported intending to leave before retirement in 2022 — up from 26% in 2019 — while only 31% intend to stay until retirement, down from 41% in 2019. [9]
• 5% of Australian teachers intend to leave within one year, and a further 8% plan to leave within 2–4 years. [9]
• 55% of US teachers reported plans to leave education sooner than originally planned in a 2022 NEA survey — up sharply from 37% the prior year. [3]
• 7% of K-12 teachers quit in 2023–2024, down from a peak of 10% in 2021–2022, but still above the estimated pre-pandemic level of 6%. [2]
• More than 300,000 US public school teachers and education staff left their jobs between February 2020 and May 2022 — approximately 3% of the entire workforce. [3]
• By 2022, there were 567,000 fewer educators in US public schools than before the pandemic, with the ratio of hires to job openings falling to just 0.57. [3]
• 29% of K-12 teachers say they will likely look for a new job — of those, 40% say they would leave education entirely. [2]
• 82% of public schools needed to fill two or more teaching vacancies before the start of the 2024–2025 school year. [4]
• The financial cost of teacher turnover ranges from $11,860 per teacher in small districts to $24,930 in large districts. [4]

Gender and Demographic Differences

• Female K-12 teachers in the US report higher burnout than male counterparts: 55% of female teachers report frequent burnout, compared to 44% of male teachers. [1]
• Female teachers earn an average of $68,000 in the US — nearly $10,000 less than their male counterparts, with the gap rising to $16,000 among middle school teachers. [2]
• 28% of teachers report experiencing depression symptoms — nearly double the 17% rate among non-teaching workers. [3]
• Black (62%) and Hispanic/Latino (59%) US teachers are more likely to plan to leave the profession earlier than planned, widening existing diversity gaps. [3]
• Higher education burnout is highest among gender minority faculty (71%), followed by women (69%), and men (57%). [4]
• 52% of K-12 teachers say they would not advise a young person starting out today to become a teacher. [4]
• 25% of Australian teachers reported teaching classes outside their area of training on a regular basis. [6]

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References

[1] Gallup (2022). K-12 Workers Have Highest Burnout Rate in U.S. — news.gallup.com/poll/393500/workers-highest-burnout-rate.aspx

[2] RAND Corporation (2024). State of the American Teacher Survey — rand.org (via Wooclap, 2025)

[3] National Education Association / McKinsey / Bureau of Labor Statistics (via Devlin Peck, 2025). Teacher Burnout Statistics: Why Teachers Quit in 2025 — devlinpeck.com/content/teacher-burnout-statistics

[4] Wooclap (2025). Teacher Burnout Statistics in 2025: Causes, Effects, and Solutions — wooclap.com/en/blog/teacher-burnout-statistics/ (aggregates RAND, Pew Research, HMN, CUPA-HR, NEU, Frontier, Learning Policy Institute, EdWorking Papers, NCES)

[5] UNSW Sydney (2025). Teachers' depression, anxiety and stress at three times the national norm — unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2025/08/teachers-depression-anxiety-and-stress-three-times-national-norm

[6] Black Dog Institute (2023). Teacher Mental Health and Burnout Survey Data — blackdoginstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/230223_Black-Dog-Institute_Teacher-survey-data.pdf

[7] Agyapong et al. (2022). Stress, Burnout, Anxiety and Depression among Teachers: A Scoping Review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health — pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9518388/

[8] RAND Corporation (2024). State of the American Teacher Survey — Teachers' Top Sources of Job-Related Stress [chart]

[9] AITSL (2023). Australia's Teacher Workforce Today — aitsl.edu.au/research/spotlights/australia-s-teacher-workforce-today

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