Twenty years on

Age and sex

The age range of the group was from 44 to 80, with 56 as the mean age. A quarter of the group were in their 40s, nearly half in their 50s, a quarter in their 60s, and only a few over 70. The mean age for all paid clergy in the Church of England and the Church in Wales is 52. In the Church of England as a whole one in eight paid clergy are under 40, one in four in their 40s, two-fifths in their 50s, and just under a quarter over 60. In fact, the majority of full-time stipendiary clergy are now aged over 50, and the average age of full-time stipendiary clergy is rising.

The average age of this cohort when they were ordained was 36 and this draws our attention to the fact that many of those who have been recruited and trained during this twenty-year period are coming to ministry as a second or third career. Although this brings the services of mature people with a range of skills and experience into the Church’s ministry, it means that they will exercise a correspondingly shorter length of time in paid ministry. It also means that the national Church has to increase recruitment to maintain the same number of clergy. If clergy serve an average of 30 years instead of 40 years, it will be necessary to train one-third more. If they serve an average of 20 years, it will be necessary to double recruitment. All of which increases the costs of training.

From the beginning of 2011 the pension age for Church of England clergy increased to 68. Though the average age for this whole group is 56, the average age of those within the group who are still in paid work for the Church is 54, with the average age of those within the group who are no longer in paid work for the Church at 60. Over a quarter of those still in work are in their last ten years and facing what the Clergy Appointments Advisor, John Lee, recognized as fulfilment or frustration. ⁵

Just over three-quarters of this group were male and just under a quarter female.

Present post

Among this cohort we find 1 bishop, 2 male archdeacons and 2 female archdeacons, 4 male residentiary canons, 31 honorary canons, 20 male and 11 female, and 52 rural deans, 42 male and 10 female (increasingly called area deans). One in seven of this whole cohort are rural deans, 52 in number, a sizeable proportion. Peyton and Gatrell said that rural deans form over 8 per cent of the total number of Anglican stipendiary clergy, and that 10 per cent of rural deans are female whereas nearly a fifth of this cohort’s rural deans are female. ⁶ Fifty-eight per cent of the group were still in paid parish ministry, the majority working as vicars or priests-in-charge, the rest team rectors, team vicars and curates. Nine per cent were working in paid sector ministry as, in the main, hospital chaplains or chaplains to the armed forces. Four per cent were in diocesan or para-church posts. So in all seven out of ten were still working in paid active ministry.

Twenty-nine per cent therefore were no longer in paid active ministry. From the whole cohort 4 men and 4 women had died. Of those no longer in paid active ministry a small proportion are in non-stipendiary ministry or have a bishop’s permission to officiate. They continue to act as ministers within the Church but are no longer being paid by the Church.

Of those no longer in paid active ministry about half are listed as retired. The official retirement age for Anglican clergy has increased during the working life of these clergy from 65 to 67 to 68 so those aged between 65 and 80 might be expected to have retired. However, the age given for retirement of these retired clergy ranges from 31 to 70: 13 clergy retired in their 30s, 14 in their 40s, 22 in their 50s, 37 between 60 and 65, and 9 over 65. This suggests that ‘retired’ covers a variety of reasons for moving out of paid active ministry. Peyton and Gatrell refer to the complex picture of clergy retirement uncovered by Barley. ⁷ Eighteen per cent of stipendiary clergy leave before they reach 60, a further 29 per cent leave aged 60–4; only 28 per cent of clergy retire at the normal pensionable age of 65, while 25 per cent continue until 66–70. While the number of ill-health retirements has remained stable for a decade it seems that the proportion of all early retirements due to stress, anxiety and depression is increasing as the pressures of ministry take their toll. ⁸

Three per cent of the cohort is listed in Crockford’s as ‘missing’ and five is listed either with no post given or as ‘addresses unknown’. There is a section at the back of Crockford’s Clerical Directory where the compilers say, ‘We should be grateful for any information to help us complete our records in respect of these clergy.’ Some will have been de-frocked, some will have joined the Roman Catholic Ordinariate, but of the others it is not possible to say for certain. What we can say is that overall one in twelve of those ordained in 1994 are lost to the compilers of Crockford’s.

Career patterns of male and female clergy

When we look at the male clergy in this cohort as a group we find that 169 are still in stipendiary parish ministry, 26 are in sector ministry, and 8 are in diocesan posts. When we look at the female clergy in this group we find 24 are still in stipendiary parish ministry, 5 are in sector ministry, 5 are in diocesan posts.

This means that just under a quarter of all the male clergy and just over a half of all the female clergy are no longer in paid active ministry. There are several contributory causes for this disparity between male and female clergy. This cohort of clergy was distinctive in being the first where women as well as men expected to be ordained priest a year after ordination as a deacon. The mean age of these women was older than that of the men so, twenty years on, they are more likely to be at an age when they can retire. In addition, among the married clergy (well over three-quarters of the total), it may be that the women are more likely to step back from paid work for child-rearing, or where two incomes are not vital. There are also pressures for women to move into unpaid ministry: in Journey to Priesthood, Thorne wrote that only 12 per cent of the women clergy said that they had made a positive choice for non-stipendiary ministry. Some said that their dioceses had offered no other option, others had found it difficult to obtain a stipendiary position, and others recognized the influence of their family circumstances. ⁹

In my ‘Clergy Career Patterns’, 16 per cent of the male clergy and 9 per cent of the female clergy were in sector ministry. ¹⁰ Those figures have now dropped to 10 per cent and 7 per cent respectively. Are less clergy choosing sector ministry posts or are there fewer sector ministry posts available? Certainly in the National Health Service there are indications that fewer hospital chaplain posts are available. In 2013 the BBC reported that:

Acute hospital trusts in England have significantly reduced their number of chaplains in the last five years against a backdrop of NHS cuts. Almost 40% of the 163 trusts contacted by BBC Local Radio in a Freedom of Information request have fewer chaplains than they did in 2009. And nearly half have reduced the number of hours chaplains are on duty. ¹¹

In Randall’s ‘Clergy Career Patterns’, of the women who are in paid active parish ministry, a smaller proportion was in incumbent-level posts than the men. In this study we note that only men were in team rector posts, and twice as many men were in incumbent-level posts as women. The lack of female team rectors in this cohort bears out the fact that women are not usually put in charge of larger churches. There were just 9 women out of over 100 delegates at a conference held in Nottingham in 2009 for leaders of larger Anglican churches, where ‘larger’ is defined as having a usual Sunday attendance of more than 350 adults and children. ¹² Ward suggests there are the following barriers to women:

Women who want to serve in a larger church sometimes can’t find a curacy in one, so may appear to have less relevant experience on their CV. Some congregations still have little experience of women’s leadership so are not sure what having a woman leader would be like. Churches are reluctant to rock the boat, so even if welcoming to women, when the time comes to make an appointment some want to keep the handful uneasy about a woman happy, and opt for a man. ¹³

In addition the opportunity that Anglican parishes have had to pass resolutions to say that they will not accept a woman as their parish priest may still be having an effect. The end result is that, twenty years on from women first being ordained as priests in the Church of England, they are far less likely to be incumbents than are men.

Theological training and clergy careers

When the careers of this cohort of clergy are looked at with the lens of theological training large discrepancies are seen. Nearly four in five of those who trained at Evangelical colleges are still working, fewer of those who trained at Catholic colleges, Celtic colleges and Middle-of-the-road colleges. However, only just over half of those who trained on theological courses are still working. This may be affected by the greater mean age and the greater proportion of women training on the courses.

The only bishop in this cohort and two of the archdeacons trained at Evangelical colleges – both of these archdeacons are female. Those who trained at Evangelical colleges include one residentiary canon, eleven honorary canons and thirty rural deans – this number of rural deans is more than those who trained at other colleges and courses put together. Stipendiary parish clergy make up two-thirds of those who trained at Evangelical colleges with one in eight retired, and smaller numbers in sector ministry, with no post or missing from Crockford’s, in diocesan posts or in unpaid parish posts.

The remaining two archdeacons – both male – trained at Catholic colleges. Alongside them were two residentiary canons, two honorary canons and four rural deans. Stipendiary parish clergy form just over half of those who trained at Catholic colleges with one in seven with no post or missing from Crockford’s. A similar number work in sector ministry, and smaller numbers in diocesan posts and retired. One in twenty of clergy who trained in Catholic theological colleges in 1994 have died.

There was one residentiary canon plus eight honorary canons alongside eight rural deans who trained at Middle-of-the-road colleges. Stipendiary parish clergy form about half of those who trained at Middle-of-the-road colleges. Nearly one-fifth have retired, with smaller numbers in sector ministry, with no post or missing in Crockford’s, and in diocesan posts.

There is one honorary canon plus two rural deans among those who trained at the Celtic colleges. Half of the group are in stipendiary parish ministry. A quarter of them have no post or are missing in Crockford’s. Smaller numbers are working in sector ministry or retired. The Celtic colleges seem particularly prone to training clergy who, within twenty years, have disappeared from the pages of Crockford’s.

It is those who trained for the ministry on the theological courses who are most likely to become canons or rural deans, with a fifth as honorary canons and a fifth as rural deans. Just under half are still in stipendiary parish ministry, with a third retired, and smaller numbers in sector ministry, with no post or missing in Crockford’s, or in diocesan posts.