A new report from the Stop School Cuts coalition – backed by ASCL, the NEU and NAHT – puts a hard number on something most people working in education already feel: schools have lost £4.5 billion to real-terms funding cuts over the last 16 years, including £300 million in the last year alone. Nearly three-quarters of schools now have less real-terms funding than they did in 2010, and more than 3,700 schools have lost over £1,000 per pupil in that time.
For EdTech suppliers, this isn’t just background noise. It changes how you need to sell.
Budget pressure changes the buying conversation
When school leaders are, in the union’s words, “on their knees trying to do more with less,” every purchase gets harder scrutiny. Nice-to-have tools get cut first. Anything positioned as “innovative” or “transformative” without a clear cost or time saving attached will struggle to get past a budget holder who is already juggling crumbling buildings, reduced staffing, and squeezed resources for basic materials.
This means the pitch has to shift. It’s no longer enough to show a school what your product does – you need to show what it replaces, what it saves, or what risk it removes. Time saved for overstretched staff, cost avoided elsewhere in the budget, or funding your product can be paid for through (pupil premium, SEND funding, catch-up grants) all become central to the conversation, not a footnote.
Procurement is getting slower and more cautious
Tighter budgets tend to mean more people sign off a purchase, not fewer. Decisions that a single department head might once have made are increasingly going through senior leadership or trust-level scrutiny. Suppliers should expect longer sales cycles, more stakeholders in the room, and a much higher bar of evidence before a school commits – pilot data, case studies from similar schools, and a clear picture of return on investment all carry more weight than they used to.
Where the opportunity still is
None of this means schools have stopped buying – it means they’re buying differently. Tools that demonstrably reduce staff workload, consolidate several existing costs into one, or directly support statutory pressures like SEND reform tend to keep moving even in a tight market. The suppliers who do well here are the ones who’ve done the work to understand exactly which budget line their product sits in, and can make that case plainly and early.
What this means for your positioning
If your sales and marketing material was built for a less cost-conscious buyer, it’s worth revisiting. Leading with impact, cost, and evidence — rather than features and innovation – isn’t just good practice, it’s what today’s funding environment demands.
At Jupiter Education, this is exactly the kind of shift we help EdTech companies navigate – sharpening a proposition so it lands with school and trust leaders who are, more than ever, watching every pound.
If you’d like a second opinion on how your product is positioned for this market, get in touch.
