North Rhine-Westphalia sees rise in lateral entry teachers

The number of lateral entrants and career changers in schools across North Rhine-Westphalia has risen significantly. According to data from IT. NRW for the 2025/26 school year, 28,790 teachers—representing 13.4 percent of the 214,290 total teaching staff—are career changers or lateral entrants.

This marks a substantial increase compared to the 2020/21 school year, when there were 17,895 such teachers, accounting for 9.2 percent of the workforce. Over the last five years, the absolute number of career changers has grown by 10,900, an increase of 4.2 percentage points.

At general education schools, the proportion of lateral entrants rose from 8.5 percent to 13.6 percent during this period. In contrast, the share at vocational schools saw a slight decrease from 13.2 percent to 12.6 percent, though a minor recent increase was noted. The majority of these educators are women; in the 2025/26 school year, women accounted for 70.4 percent of all lateral entrants.