Attracting Talent: Why Culture Now Outweighs Salary

For decades, salary was seen as the primary lever in recruitment. Offer more money, attract better people. But the past few years have shown this formula is breaking down. The world’s biggest firms have proved it.

Meta famously poured over $100 million into poaching AI engineers from rivals. Many took the money, but a significant number drifted back to their former employers—or elsewhere—within a year. Why? Because while pay packets buy time, they rarely buy belonging. People return to the organisations that give them purpose, growth, and trust.

Schools are experiencing their own version of this challenge. With over 32,000 schools across the UK and 643,000 full-time teachers, competition for staff is fierce. Salaries are squeezed by national funding settlements. Retention rates are under constant pressure. And yet the pattern is the same as in Silicon Valley: the most talented teachers aren’t driven by money alone. They want to be in a place where they are valued, developed, and inspired.

This is why culture has become the true differentiator. A school’s reputation for support, collaboration, and professional growth now carries as much weight in recruitment as its Ofsted rating or exam results. If the staffroom culture is brittle or hierarchical, word spreads fast. If it’s open, collegiate, and centred on trust, schools find they can hold on to great people even when others can’t.

The most effective way to achieve this is through coaching. Coaching cultures replace surveillance with support. They reframe accountability as growth. Instead of teachers feeling judged, they feel invested in. In practical terms, that means prioritising time for reflection, providing feedback that is specific and actionable, and modelling vulnerability at leadership level. It’s about getting culture right before chasing metrics.

And here’s where technology can play a quiet but powerful role. Tools like Starlight don’t replace the human relationships at the heart of coaching; they amplify them. By turning a simple audio recording of a lesson into timely, specific, and private feedback, Starlight helps schools sustain a coaching culture at scale. It takes the burden off overstretched mentors, giving teachers insight within minutes and leaders the assurance that professional growth is happening across the organisation.

Attracting top talent isn’t just about salary anymore. In schools, as in tech, the best candidates are looking for a culture that helps them thrive. Building that culture requires more than money. It requires trust, investment, and a commitment to coaching—the conditions under which people don’t just work, but belong.

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The Insight Engine is written by Adam Sturdee, co-founder of Starlight—the UK’s first AI-powered coaching platform—and Assistant Headteacher at St Augustine’s Catholic College. This blog is part of a wider mission to support educators through meaningful reflection, not performance metrics. It documents the journey of building Starlight from the ground up, and explores how AI, when shaped with care, can reduce workload, surface insight, and help teachers think more deeply about their practice. Rooted in the belief that growth should be private, professional, and purposeful, The Insight Engine offers ideas and stories that put insight—not judgment—at the centre of development.