For the fourth year, the Confederation of School Trusts and Edurio have partnered to conduct the National School Trust Survey.
The design of the survey is informed by CST’s Building Strong Trusts framework and explores school trust priorities and challenges across the various elements of trust leadership.
In June and July 2025, 390 trust accounting officers across England participated in the survey; these are the senior leaders directly responsible to Parliament for their trusts, typically the trust chief executive.
The survey covered trusts of all sizes, ranging from trusts with a single academy to those managing dozens of schools, making it a representative sample of school trusts across the sector.
To ensure reliability, trust accounting officers were invited to respond to the survey via a dedicated link available only to them, allowing for a single response per trust, making this the most extensive and validated set of trust CEO priorities and challenges.
This summary report highlights responses to key questions in the survey based on priorities highlighted by trust leaders as we begin the academic year 2025/26.
