Church of England clergy and vocations in crisis, report says
The Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell gives his Presidential Address on the first day of the Church of England's General Synod at Church House in central London last year
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The Church of England vicar is becoming an “endangered species”, a new report launched at the House of Lords last week has warned.
The report, Parish Ministry: Addressing the Crisis in Stipendiary Clergy Numbers in the Church of England, is published after a day-long consultation at St George’s House, Windsor that brought together bishops, theologians, parish clergy and Church of England officials.
The consultation, an initiative between campaign group Save the Parish and senior Church of England leaders to halt the decline in frontline ministry, was chaired by former Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich Martin Seeley. It came as latest statistics show entries into ordination training fell from 591 in 2020 down to 370 in 2024, with 71 per cent of ministry leaders identifying “poor clergy well-being” as the primary factor of concern to potential candidates.
Stipendiary clergy numbers have likewise fallen, to an historic low of 6295, with 379 priests resigning in a single year compared to just 278 planned retirements.
At the same time, nearly a third of active clergy show symptoms of depression.
The report calls on the Church to move past managerial targets and focus instead on the “cure of souls”, prioritising pastoral care, local presence and prayer.
Revd Marcus Walker, chair of Save the Parish Chair, said: “If clergy are loving their job, they will be the greatest recruitment sergeant for new priests the Church has ever known. A joyful, hopeful clergy lifts parishes, people, and vocations like nothing else. This report isn’t the answer to everything, but it has got all the right people into the room to start working out how we can use the money, talent, passion, and grace we have been gifted to revive the spirit of the priesthood in the Church of England.”
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