Staffing

At the end of every year the Ministry collects aggregated staff numbers (headcount and full-time equivalent) by a range of characteristics such as full-time or part-time status, subsector, staff-type (academic, research and other staff), gender, ethnic group and age group.

For 2025, these workforce returns came from 8 universities, 15 polytechnics, 3 wānanga and 168 private training establishments (PTEs).

What does the 2025 data show?

• In 2025, the total staff headcount in tertiary education providers was 49,150, a decrease of 0.9% or 450 staff from 49,600 in 2024. Full-time equivalent (FTE) numbers also decreased, by 1.0% from 35,380 in 2024 to 35,010 in 2025.
• Staff headcounts in public providers decreased slightly (down 0.3%) in 2025 compared with 2024, while FTE in public providers decreased by 1.0%. Polytechnics saw a decrease in both staff headcount (down 2.9% to 9,345) and FTE (down 2.4% to 7,135). University numbers were steady with headcount up slightly by 0.2% (to 30,950) and FTE down 0.2% (to 21,245). While wānanga staff headcount increased by 3.9% to 2,135, FTE decreased by 4.9% to 1,740. Staff headcount at PTEs decreased by 4.5% to 6,720, while FTE decreased by only 1.5% to 4,885.
• Staff headcounts in 2025 were 3.9% lower overall than pre-Covid in 2019, while the overall FTE was 2.9% lower.
• The percentage of academic staff who were Māori remained the same at universities (9%), polytechnics (14%) and PTEs (17%), and decreased slightly at wānanga from 81% in 2024 to 80% in 2025.
• The percentage of academic staff who were Pacific peoples remained stable at universities (3%), polytechnics (5%), wānanga (6%) and PTEs (7%).
• Among senior academic staff (professors and associate professors) at universities, 39% were female in 2025, up slightly from 38% in 2024.
• The number of students (EFTS) per academic staff member (FTE) increased across most subsectors in 2025. This ratio of students to academic staff was at its highest in 2025 for universities, for public providers overall and for PTEs, of any year since 2016.
• Figure 1 shows how student and staff numbers at public providers have changed from 2016 to 2025. While student numbers (EFTS) increased in all subsectors from 2024 to 2025, academic staff FTE remained steady or decreased in public providers. This increased the student-to-staff ratios for universities (from 19.4 to 20.5), polytechnics (from 16.6 to 16.9) and wānanga (from 22.5 in 2024 to 24.9 students per academic staff member in 2025). The ratio at PTEs remained steady at 15.8.

Figure 1: Academic staff and students at public providers, 2016-2025, by subsector

Figure 1 shows changes in the number of academic staff (FTE) at public providers, compared with student numbers (EFTS). The scales are set so that the staff and student lines for each sub-sector will overlap at a ratio of 20 students to 1 academic staff member.