UK teachers double AI use, but working hours haven't dropped

Around 80 percent of UK teachers now regularly use AI at work, and the share using it weekly has doubled from 26 percent in 2025 to 52 percent this year, according to a YouGov poll of 1,033 teachers funded by education-tech exhibition Bett and reported by The Register.

The hours, though, have not really moved. Just over half of AI-using teachers say the tools have reduced their workload, but the survey reports that "35 percent said they were working fewer hours" as a result. 55 percent are working the same as before, and 4 percent say they are working more.

Most of the use sits upstream of the classroom. 76 percent lean on AI for lesson plans and worksheets, around 39 percent draft letters, emails or pupil reports, and only 8 percent use it to mark or grade work. Time saved on one task is being absorbed by demand for other work rather than banked as free time.

Secondary teachers are flagging the flip side. "71 percent of secondary school teachers said AI had made it easier for children to cheat," the survey found, and 57 percent suspected at least one pupil of handing in AI-assisted work without permission in the past four weeks. The findings land after the UK government's April launch of a £23 million trial for AI and edtech aimed at lifting results and cutting teacher workload, a workload that still routinely tips past 50 hours a week.