That’s according to Lachlan Bowden, practice group leader of education for Australia at Aon, which has just released the findings from its 2026 Independent Schools Risk Report.

For the second consecutive survey undertaken by the global professional services firm, the last having taken place in 2024, cyber risk stands as the number one concern facing independent schools, while workforce shortages and increasing staff workloads are cited as key factors that are driving talent risk to become the second highest ranked risk.

“They’ve got fewer new teachers coming into that space, and if I look around my own age group that went through tertiary schooling to become a teacher, they’ve changed in recent years to another profession," Bowden tells EducationHQ.

“There’s also other younger teachers that are already considering leaving, and with the rising expectations from parents and students, everything sort of starts compounding down.

“It’s about how do you attract new teachers to the field and at the same time retain the more longer term, stable ones to not leave so quickly when the retirement age comes up.”

Talent attraction and retention are identified as one of the sector’s most pressing challenges, as schools compete for a shrinking pool of qualified teachers while responding to evolving expectations from parents, students and communities.

The independent school sector is operating in an increasingly competitive labour market where attracting and retaining talented educators has become a strategic priority,  Bowden shares.

“Schools that invest in leadership development, employee support and long-term workforce planning will be better positioned to attract, retain and develop talented educators over the long term,” Aon’s Lachlan Bowden says.

Schools, he says, are responding to growing expectations around academic performance, student wellbeing and community engagement while managing workforce shortages that continue to place additional pressure on existing staff.

“Everybody’s got a different way of attracting people and where they’ve got the rising workload and complexity that they will take options where they can get a better wellbeing balance at different schools,” Bowden shares.

There’s also increased competition now for the right candidate for the position.

“The case of just having a person in the seat doesn’t cut it anymore, you need the right people in the seat – but also making sure that the expectations aren’t changing on a regular basis.

“As you can imagine, when you take a job role, given the job description, a couple of months goes by, maybe the dynamics change, maybe there’s a different expectation to a few things, but they sort of gradually happen over time.

“I think sometimes teachers can be challenged almost immediately. What they were sold as a job description coming in, the changes are almost immediate when they get in, that there’s either been a deficit of the previous person in the role or there’s been other shortages, and suddenly they’re fighting fires from the get go.”

Bowden says it’s critical that principals and other leaders are giving teachers a clear indication that if they have ambition, there are clear steps available to them.

“It’s making sure that they’ve got a career pathway to work with, and whether that means there’s opportunities to do leadership roles even for the short term, or are shown some of those leadership roles and see those pathways open up, would definitely make it a big stretch forward.”

The report suggests schools are placing greater emphasis on succession planning, with more schools identifying potential successors before vacancies arise and implementing formal processes than when the last Risk Report was released in 2024.

This reflects growing recognition of the importance of leadership in supporting long-term workforce planning.

“There seems to be a greater emphasis on, rather than reactive hiring that we’ve probably seen schools and other sectors in the past, there’s more of a proactive succession planning, where they’re really trying to identify those successors early, which goes hand in hand with the career pathways as well.

“But the fact that they’re taking a more succinct view on who those successors are and developing those leadership capabilities over time, is what really starts providing that extra support to them and the greater emphasis as we’ve now seen.”

The report found that teacher responsibilities continue to extend beyond classroom teaching to include student wellbeing, leadership, administration and extracurricular activities.

Findings also highlight opportunities for schools to strengthen their employee value proposition through career development, mentoring, leadership capability, flexible employment models and proactive workforce planning, rather than relying solely on recruitment activity.

“To stand out, is really about clarifying, communicating what’s unique about your school, some of the benefits that you’re providing, the balances for wellbeing, obviously the career opportunities,

“But it’s also aligning some of those rewards and recognition pieces, because each school will be different, that’s why they’re independent, because they’re all unique and they’ve all got amazing values to offer, but it’s finding the right people to fit the right schools.”

Bowden encourages independent school leaders to prioritise strategic workforce planning to address capability gaps.

“Where you’re identifying that there are people that will soon retire or have the potential to change roles, and planning for those gaps and planning for some of those changes – that’s what’s going to put you on the front foot.

It’s also targeting and upskilling in some of the key areas across the board, he says.

“Not everybody needs to be a specialist in cyber or finances in every one of your department sectors, but if you’ve got someone that can become a little bit more of a jack of all trades, then you will funnel them into, obviously, a capability stronghold for them really, and that’s where, again, it opens up that career pathway.”

The report highlights an increase in reported cyber attacks on schools compared to 2024.

Boards are elevating cyber security from what was previously a minor IT issue to a core governance framework, with 76 per cent of schools implementing documented preventative measures, an increase from 66 per cent in 2024.

“Cyber and the rising cyber events, they’re massive numbers – to have one in four schools that are up from one in five in and how quickly the landscape is evolving there, schools are trying to funnel in support and specialties to combat it.”

But it’s also the way that those risks are interconnected, Bowden highlights.

“Having cyber and mental health and regulation and financial sustainability, they really are separate issues, but they are coming together and reinforced in the fact that if you have a cyber incident, for example, that then puts increased workload and stress onto the staff, it has reputational factors, it’s got financial implications.

“The way they’re interconnected is really challenging.”

Click here to check out Aon's 2026 Independent Schools Risk Report.