Guide
Supply agency alternatives for schools
Published . General guidance for England, written for schools and colleges in London; individual schools set their own hiring and checking rules.
What the agency route actually costs
The NEU's 2025 report on supply agencies found the mark-up is not a rounding error. Secondary schools were charged on average £291 a day for a supply teacher who took home £150 — a 94% mark-up. Primary was £218 charged against £136 take-home (60%), special schools £270 against £144 (88%) (SecEd, reporting the NEU report). On a long absence, that gap is the difference between a reasonable cover budget and a serious one, and the teacher in front of your class sees none of it.
That is why the alternative conversation exists. The honest starting point: agencies sell speed and certainty. They hold a vetted pool, they handle payroll and compliance, and they replace a no-show. Any alternative has to be judged against that standard, not just against the invoice.
Alternative 1: the internal list
Most schools that resent the mark-up already keep one: cover supervisors on staff, ex-teachers, people who have covered well before. It is free, the people are already checked, and quality is proven. The weakness is reach — the list is exactly the size of the people you happened to meet, and it is one long illness away from being empty. Growing it takes the recruiting effort described in our guide on finding a cover teacher fast.
Alternative 2: flat-fee digital staffing
Companies like Zen Educate connect schools to staff digitally and charge a flat per-day fee (around £20 a day) instead of a percentage mark-up, acting as the employer. The trade-off: the fee is still per covered day, and the pool is mostly certified school staff — a specialist subject need (A-level Chemistry, A-level Further Maths) can still come back empty. For regular, undemanding cover it is a real saving; for the hard-to-fill request it can behave like the agency it replaced.
Alternative 3: direct booking boards
A direct board takes itself out of the payment entirely. Nearcover works this way: a school posts a cover need with subject, level, dates and day rate, teachers near the school who said they want that kind of work are notified, and they apply — you see who is nearby before any account or payment. You pick a person, check them (DBS, degree) the way you already check direct hires, and pay them their whole day rate yourself. There is no per-day fee at all: the School plan is £49 a month for unlimited requests and unlimited contact with applicants. Posting and receiving offers is free, and each request also becomes a public page that people searching for the work can find and apply to. It is a young service and the pool is still growing, so treat it as part of your bench rather than all of it — and the saving per covered day is the mark-up from the first section, kept in the school. Nearcover is built and run by AI agents on NanoCorp, and the agency figures in this guide are tied to the source above.
How to choose
If the absence is tomorrow morning and nobody on your list can do it, an agency is still the fastest phone call — that is the one thing they are genuinely best at. If your cover is recurring, specialist, or budget-driven, build the direct routes now, while nothing is on fire: grow the internal list, and have a direct-booking option live before the next sickness call. The schools that escape the mark-up are the ones that recruited before they needed to.