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EPIJames Zuccollo — no licensed photograph is available, so the think tank plate is shown instead.

Think tank

James Zuccollo

Director for School Workforce, Education Policy Institute

Education Policy Institute is based in Cities of London and Westminster — the organisation’s base, not a personal address.

Press citations

2

Topics

2

Adult social care & reform

Last quoted

Aug 2026

James Zuccollo: key facts

Kind of voice
Think tank
Role
Director for School Workforce
Organisation
Education Policy Institute
Organisation based in
Cities of London and Westminster
Quoted on
Adult social care & reform, Learning disability & autism
Tracked press citations
2
Most recently quoted
27 Aug 2026

Who James Zuccollo is

James Zuccollo is Director for School Workforce at the Education Policy Institute (EPI), a role he has held since joining in 2018. He leads a research programme on teacher policy covering recruitment and retention, workload, pay, and professional development. Before EPI he led the economic research programme for the Higher Education Funding Council for England, carried out macroeconomic research for the think tank Reform, and worked as a consulting economist in New Zealand. He is known for arguing that workforce shortfalls in education — including among educational psychologists — pose a direct risk to the delivery of inclusive education and children's mental health support. He has written for the FT, The Guardian, City AM, New Statesman and Prospect, and has discussed his work on the BBC's Today programme.

“A measure that includes settled-status holders would operate not only as a brake on future recruitment but as a charge on staff already teaching in our schools, in many cases for years.”

References for this biography

  1. 1.James Zuccollo – Education Policy Institute staff page — Role title, organisation, year of joining EPI, prior career history, media appearances
  2. 2.Educational psychologists in England – EPI Report, April 2026 — Research lead role, expertise in educational psychology workforce, health-adjacent work on children's SEND and wellbeing
  3. 3.BPS: Chronic shortage of Educational Psychologists must be urgently addressed — Quoted commentary on EP workforce crisis and children's inclusion agenda; confirms role title
  4. 4.Education Policy Institute – Companies House registered office — Organisation's registered head-office address and postcode (SW1W 9TR)
  5. 5.Experts play down DfE role in teacher workforce recovery – TES, July 2026 — Recent press quotation; confirms ongoing role and public commentary on school workforce
  6. 6.EPI comments on the Workload Reduction Taskforce – January 2024 — Confirms role title and public policy commentary on teacher recruitment and retention

Notable achievements

  • Co-authored the first comprehensive national assessment of the educational psychologist workforce in England since the Covid-19 pandemic (April 2026), funded by the British Psychological Society, finding a nearly 20-fold gap in EP provision between best- and worst-served local authorities. Source ↗
  • Led EPI's response to the DfE Workload Reduction Taskforce (January 2024), arguing that removal of Performance Related Pay requirements was a key step given the significant recruitment and retention challenges facing schools. Source ↗
  • Published 'A borrowed recovery: the 2025 school workforce data' (July 2026), warning that recent workforce improvements were driven by a weak graduate job market and falling pupil numbers rather than government policy, and could reverse quickly. Source ↗

What James Zuccollo has said

  • “Continuing to fund training for only 200 [educational psychologists] each year will not be enough to adequately support children's needs. A relatively modest investment of around £140m would allow EPs to work more effectively to improve outcomes and break the cycle of burnout and attrition that currently threatens the service.”

    Director for school workforce at the Education Policy Institute · Learning disability & autism · 27 Aug 2026 · English councils need to hire 1,400 more educational psychologists, says report ↗

Recent social activity

  • 1/3 of people finding teaching an attractive career sounds pretty good to me! https://t.co/UU2KX6qV5n

    x.com ↗

  • Me in @SchoolsWeek: we need to trust schools a bit more and let them try new things.

    x.com ↗

Where James Zuccollo has been quoted

  1. Reform UK levy on employing overseas staff ‘would harm NHS and social care’theguardian.com · 27 Aug 2026
  2. English councils need to hire 1,400 more educational psychologists, says reporttheguardian.com · 27 Aug 2026

Related media coverage

Recent UK press coverage of their topics — not necessarily citing them directly.

Contact & links

Organisational contact points only, each taken from a page the organisation publishes itself. No personal or direct contact details are held or shown.

Chairs, directors and heads of policy institutes, foundations and think tanks speaking for their organisation’s research and policy position. Citations are counted by an automated scan of UK press coverage and may be incomplete. Roles, biographies and contact details are researched and human-reviewed before they appear here; anything not yet reviewed is simply absent rather than shown unverified. This profile was last updated on 5 Oct 2026. See the methodology for how this page is built, or email contact@bridgeheadcommunications.com to correct anything on it.