early years teacher
Early years teachers instruct students, primarily young children, in basic subjects and creative play with the aim of developing their social and intellectual skills in an informal way in preparation for future formal learning. They create lesson plans, possibly in accordance with a fixed curriculum, for an entire class or smaller groups and test the students on the content. These lesson plans, based on basic subjects, can include the instruction of number, letter, and colour recognition, days of the week, categorisation of animals and transport vehicles etc. Early years teachers also supervise students outside the classroom on school grounds and enforce rules of behaviour there as well.
early years teacher early years teachers instruct students, primarily young children, in basic subjects and creative play with the aim of developing their social and intellectual skills in an informal way in preparation for future formal learning. The role shows moderate AI exposure (0.47 on a 0-1 scale) — some tasks are being automated but the role adapts. The most in-demand skills for the role include social development, learning difficulties, instructional strategies, teamwork principles, curriculum objectives.
Pay in the UK
UK: median £37,593 a year for Nursery education teaching professionals (ONS ASHE 2025, full-time)
UK jobs are grouped differently; this is the closest UK occupation group (ONS SOC 2020 2315). ONS rates this estimate acceptable: it rests on a small sample, so treat it as a rough guide. 2025 provisional figures; ONS revises them a year later. Source: ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (Open Government Licence)
Pay in India (occupation group)
Average monthly earnings of salaried employees in the occupation group “Professionals” in India, from the Government of India's Periodic Labour Force Survey (January–December 2025). It covers everyone in this group, not only early years teacher, and it is not US pay converted to rupees.
Source: MoSPI (Government of India), Periodic Labour Force Survey Annual Report 2025, Table 51 — average wage/salary earnings of regular wage/salaried employees, NCO-2015 division 2. Official India data gives one average per occupation group: there are no official India figures for single careers, experience levels or cities. Read the report
Top skills
Knowledge you'll build
- Education and Training
- English Language
- Psychology
- Mathematics
- Customer and Personal Service
- Sociology and Anthropology
- Public Safety and Security
- Administrative
What you'd actually do
- Establish and enforce rules for behavior and policies and procedures to maintain order among students.
- Prepare children for later grades by encouraging them to explore learning opportunities and to persevere with challenging tasks.
- Instruct students individually and in groups, adapting teaching methods to meet students' varying needs and interests.
- Teach basic skills, such as color, shape, number and letter recognition, personal hygiene, and social skills.
- Demonstrate activities to children.
- Read books to entire classes or to small groups.
Tools & technology you'd use
Frequently asked questions
What does early years teacher do?
Early years teachers instruct students, primarily young children, in basic subjects and creative play with the aim of developing their social and intellectual skills in an informal way in preparation for future formal learning. They create lesson plans, possibly in accordance with a fixed curriculum, for an entire class or smaller groups and test the students on the content.
What skills does early years teacher need?
The most in-demand skills for this role include social development, learning difficulties, instructional strategies, teamwork principles, curriculum objectives, kindergarten school procedures. These are the skills O*NET identifies as most important for competent performance.
Will AI replace early years teacher?
Our AI-durability model gives early years teacher a score of 0.47 on a 0-1 scale (higher = more exposure). That places it at moderate AI exposure — some tasks are being automated but the role adapts. Learning to work with AI tools rather than against them is the path forward.