TEACHING is seen as a "boring" by graduates seeking greater risk and challenge in their careers, the head of a watchdog has said.

Ken Muir, chief executive of the General Teaching Council for Scotland, said those leaving university were no longer seeking the sort of lifelong job security offering by teaching.

Last month, GTCS survey found 861 teachers between the ages of 21 and 45 had left the profession in 2016.

Thirteen per cent said they had taken a career opportunity abroad while other prominent reasons included taking a career break and changing career.

The concerns come at a time when it has been increasingly difficult to find teachers for some posts in some schools with 730 unfilled vacancies across 27 of Scotland’s 32 council areas last summer.

There have been particular concerns over shortages of specialist teachers in key subjects including science, computing science, maths, religious education and home economics with Scottish Government targets for training places not being filled.

Mr Muir said: "In the last few years we have spectacularly failed to attract students into teaching from school through the traditional routes and there are some subjects where we are having particular problems.

"Traditionally you saw students entering the teaching profession as a lifelong career, but this is no longer the case. We are dealing with people with a very different outlook on life, particularly when compared to some of the older generations."

Mr Muir said teaching and other professions no longer held the attraction that traditionally they would have done with young people more keen on seeing the world, trying new things or taking a risk.

He added: "There is a keenness amongst students to do things very differently from their parent and their career paths are much less linear than they used to be.

"Part of the cultural shift we are experiencing is because we are living in a world increasingly dominated by social media where the moderate, and let's face it the teaching profession is seen to be a safe and moderate profession, is actually quite boring and where the sensational is quite appealing."

However, Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) teaching union, said long-term deterioration in pay was a major disincentive.

He highlighted figures which show that after six years a teacher will have reached the top of the pay scale and be earning £36,000 compared to £42,000 for the average graduate, who could expect significant increases as they make further progress.

He said: "It is not difficult to work out what some of the challenges are. The majority of teachers stay at the top of the pay scale for the rest of their career.

"If you want to look at attracting teachers you have to look at the salary that is being paid to the profession and the career progression.

"We have wiped out promoted posts across the sector on the alter of austerity and therefore there is little opportunity for the vast majority of teachers to gain that professional satisfaction beyond the classroom once they reach the top of the pay scale."

In February, the government launched a recruitment campaign to attract young science and maths undergraduates into the teaching profession.

However, universities said while the campaign had led to an increase in interest in teaching it had not resulted in a higher number of applications to target subjects.

The Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Learned Societies’ Group on STEM said more needed to be done and suggested bursaries of up to £30,000 could be offered.