Credit: Bart Everson/ CC [1]BY [1] SA 2.0 [1]

The Department for Education’s online Teachers’ Vacancy Service is scheduled to reach public beta phase by the end of April.

The service will provide an online portal through which teaching jobs across England can be posted by employers for prospective candidates to search and, ultimately, apply for. The service has already successfully negotiated its discovery and alpha phases, during which DfE worked with supplier dxw in designing the service and building a prototype. 

The department has now published a contract notice [2] on the government’s Digital Marketplace seeking “a highly skilled, collaborative supplier with experience in delivering digital services” that can help take the service into beta stage and beyond.

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DfE is planning to launch a public beta of the service by the end of April. In the months thereafter, the service will be tested with pilot schools and “iterated based on user feedback, including testing application tracking, and other features as needed by users”. The goal is to pass the Government Digital Service’s beta assessment by the end of October.

In addition to serving as a job-advertising service for schools and a search facility for teachers, the government intends that the service will “provide the department with real-time data and insights about teacher recruitment”. 

Suppliers have until 26 January to bid for the opportunity, and DfE plans to evaluate no more than three bidders. A contract is due to kick off on 28 February and last for an estimated nine months, during which time the supplier will be primarily expected to work from the department’s Westminster headquarters.

The creation of the Teachers’ Vacancy Service was a Conservative manifesto pledge ahead of the 2017 general election.