The situation is dire, researchers behind the latest Australian Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey say, with the 2025 findings showing more than half (54.4 per cent) of school leaders are seriously considering leaving their current position, up from 53.2 per cent from the previous year.

Since launching some 15 years ago, the study has helped to put principals’ health and wellbeing firmly on the national agenda.  

Yet while a number of positive initiatives are now seeking to move the dial on key measures there “remains concern about the sustainability of the principalship as it is currently experienced”.

Former principal Dr Philip Riley founded the study in 2011 and says it’s unfortunate although unsurprising that each year the media focus their attention on the offensive behaviour cast at school leaders while tending to ignore the “insidious problem” of moral stress captured in the data.

“In both Australia and New Zealand 99 per cent of principals are working dangerously long hours every week.

“They rate this as their most significant stressor and their second highest stressor is ‘not enough time to devote to teaching and learning’.

“This produces moral stress: interference or even blocking of professional behaviours guided by moral purpose. It may be even more dangerous than other stressors due to its impact on one’s identity,” Riley flags in the new report.

Systemic change is desperately needed, the research team urge, despite many principals still appearing to be resilient, highly motivated and finding great satisfaction in their work amid the challenges.

“Our concern remains this is not a sustainable situation and ought not be used as a justification for allowing the status quo to continue.

“Too many school leaders are at too great a risk of burnout. Without structural and systematic change, the risk of principals acting on their intention to consider leaving their current role is high,” they say.

Workload woes

School leaders continue to work long hours, averaging 53.9 hours per week during term and 19.6 hours during holidays – well above an average working week in Australia.

Principals of independent schools work longer hours (averaging 56.3 hours per week), a finding the researchers put down to the often extensive programs offered within the sector, including weekend sport.

Dr Paul Kidson, ACU researcher and a former school principal, suggests it’s not just the extra hours that principals are clocking up that’s the problem, but the sheer intensity and complexity of their work from one minute to the next.

Answerable to federal and state governments, regulatory bodies, broader school systems and their school communities at the local level, Kidson says principals are pulled in multiple directions with multiple pressing issues bearing down on them simultaneously.

“We know that they have a very high cognitive load. You speak to any principle by nine o'clock in the morning and they've probably dealt with about 15 issues already - but what they then end up with is this series of multiple expectations that are often difficult to fully realise and respond to.”

There’s simply too many low-level administrative tasks chewing up principals’ focus too, Kidson says.

“In 2023 the Productivity Commission talked about the fact that there are these [unimpactful admin tasks] in their review of education.

“Righto, so why are we doing them? And yet [principals] do because that's what the requirement is.”

Parents with unreasonable attitudes and requests for their child are another big drain on our school leaders’ cognitive resources, Kidson suggests.

“[Here] you start to get into issues related to what some parents and caregivers think is the best interests of their child, and they don't necessarily match the way that the school and particularly teachers and the principal might do those things.

“So, you've got all these great moral tensions about what could, should and ought to be done, and it's not easy to navigate that.”

Sources of stress

Last year the top stressors for principals remained the sheer quantity of work and the lack of time to focus on teaching and learning, which, tellingly, have not changed in 15 years.

The most significant shift since 2011 is principals’ increased stress around supporting the mental health of both students and staff. Kidson says this trend began well before COVID hit.

Anxiety and depression rates among our school leaders remain alarming.

In 2025, 10.3 per cent of principals scored ‘Severe’ on the GAD-7 anxiety scale, and 8.2 per cent on the PHQ-9 depression scale - both showing slight increases since 2024.

The study also assesses ‘Red Flag’ email alerts sent to principals as key indicator of elevated psychosocial risk.

While the 2025 report shows an encouraging overall decline of these alerts, a concerning increase in reports of self-harm emerged.

This warrants the attention of policymakers, Kidson says.

“Keep in mind there are a number of components that go into those Red Flag emails - quality of life, self-harm, excessive consumption of alcohol, not enough sleep…

“But when we get to a situation where a school leader is under such duress they just go ‘I just don't want to get out of bed, I can't deal with this’, and that's where we also see that there has been an increase as well in some of the severe and moderately severe reports of anxiety and depression.

“Now they are a constellation of deep concern because what they speak to is not just that these things are occurring, but that [principals] don't feel that they've got the support to be able to respond to them…”

Cast the flotation device

Despite some solid mental health support initiatives put forward by government and Catholic school systems, it’s clear that many principals don’t feel they have permission to take these up, Kidson adds.

“We've got to be able say, ‘it's okay for you to look after yourself’.”

Researchers say that principal preparation programs across the country must include strategies for identifying when and how to seek help, and that without this we ramp up the risk of school leadership attrition, with system-wide implications.

The tenacity and goodwill of principals cannot continue to be taken for granted, Kidson says.

“I mean, if somebody who is drowning says ‘I really need some help’. You don't respond by saying, ‘look, I've got a floatation device here for you but you seem to be a really committed person so I won't throw to you’.

“That doesn't make sense. And that's why we've been saying for the last couple of years you ‘just don't take this for granted’.

“I can give you a handful of particular anecdotes of people who firsthand directly have told me that they left, not because they want to retire, but because they just don't want to continue doing it.”

This is the second in a series of articles canvassing findings from the 2025 Australian Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey. Read the first instalment here.