Accessibility statement

This accessibility statement applies to Apply for qualified teacher status.

This website is run by the Department for Education. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • zoom in up to 400% without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

We've also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

  • Prioritisation decision page radio button
  • Conditional reveal asks for further information
  • Additional content within conditional reveal (CMS)
  • Hint text for using country field

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

Email: professional.recognition@education.gov.uk

We'll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We're always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we're not meeting accessibility requirements, you can contact us using the following details:

Email: professional.recognition@education.gov.uk

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the 'accessibility regulations'). If you're not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical information about this website's accessibility

The Department for Education is committed to making its websites accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance status

This website is partially compliant with the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) version 2.2 AA standard, due to the following non-compliances (and/or) the following exemptions.

Non-accessible content

The content is non-accessible for the following reason(s):

  • Prioritisation decision page radio button: On the Prioritisation decision page, a radio button has been used for the option to select if the application should be prioritised. As there is only one option available a checkbox should be used here.

Users may select the radio button and want to deselect which you are unable to do with a radio button. This could also cause confusion for screen reader users as when they navigate to a radio button, they would expect multiple options to be available.

Recommendation: Change the component used here from a radio button to a checkbox.

  • Conditional reveal asks for further information: When selecting ‘No’ for the ‘Are these details correct?’ answer, a conditional reveal appears asking for users to supply a reason. This is similar to issue 12 in that this could benefit from being its own question page.

Conditionally revealed content can often be confusing for users especially people navigating the page using a screen reader.

Recommendation: This question could again be provided on an additional page where the question could also be provided with some hint text on why the details may not be correct.

  • Additional content within conditional reveal (CMS): When selecting ‘No’ for the answer on this page, there are a large number of conditionally revealed checkboxes which appear.

This could be confusing for users as there is a lot of additional content that appears within the conditional reveal. There is already quite a lot of content on this page, and this conditionally revealed content could add to the cognitive load of the page.

Showing additional content in this way also often does not test well with people using screen readers.

Recommendation: After selecting ‘No’ and moving to the next step, a new page could be created to ask an additional question of ‘Select the reason the applicant’s work history doesn’t meet the criteria for prioritisation’. This would be easier for users to understand and would be less cognitive load for users.

  • Hint text for using country field: The input which asks users to select their country does not have hint text to advise users on how to use the input. The input requires users to type into the input to start a search for countries, this is not clear when first looking at the input and the hint text does not explain this to users.

Screen reader users and users with cognitive disabilities could struggle to use the input and may be confused that results are supplied within the input when they start typing.

Recommendation: Provide some hint text to explain to users that they need to start to type the name of the country within the input and to select the country from the list of results.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 02 February 2026.

This website was last tested on 13 October 2025. The test was carried out by DesignOps - Internal DfE Team. We used this approach to deciding on a sample of pages to test, Internal Audit.

Accessibility statement version: 1