Sally Weale Education correspondent

The Guardian. Tuesday 5 May 2015 18.16 BSTLast modified on Tuesday 5 May 201518.48 BST

New figures reveal applications to join profession have declined by 27,000 in last year, with Tristram Hunt accusing Tories of ‘storing up serious trouble’

Tristram Hunt, shadow education secretary. Photograph: David Hartley/Rex Shutterstock

Labourhas warned of widespread teacher shortages across the country, as new figures reveal that applications to join the profession have declined by 27,000 in the last 12 months.

The shadow education secretary, Tristram Hunt, accused the Tories of “storing up serious trouble”, with missed recruitment targets, falling applications and the number of teachers quitting the profession at a 10-year high.

Spending on supply teachers, meanwhile, has gone up by more than £50m in the last year, as schools struggle to fill gaps in their teams with temporary supply staff, Labour said.

Labour said England could face a shortage of around 30,000 of the required number of qualified entrants to teaching by September 2016, with nearly 160,000 additional qualified teachers needed over the next three years.

Demand for places has gone down. In April 2014 there were 125,310 applications, compared with 98,000 at the same time this year. The number of individual applicants placed or holding an offer has also gone down, by more than 3,300, from 24,310 in April 2014 to 20,990 in April 2015.

Hunt said: “This is damning evidence of David Cameron’s complete failure on education over the last five years.

“As well as letting standards slip with the decision to allow unqualified teachers into the classroom, the Tories are storing up serious trouble for our schools, with missed recruitment targets, falling numbers of applications and the number of teachers quitting at a 10-year high.

“We will attract and retain good teachers by ensuring there are high-quality opportunities for all teachers to progress in their careers and build their skills. We will also raise standards and values, and support teaching as a profession, reversing the Tories’ decision to remove the requirement for teachers to be qualified.”

The figures are likely to exacerbate already widespread fears of a growing crisis in teacher recruitment and retention – almost 50,000 teachers quit the profession last year.

Teaching union conferences held over the past few weeks have all debated the issue. The National Association of Head Teachers, which met in Liverpool over the weekend, highlighted a widespread problem of recruitment of senior staff.

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