The end of the school leadership shortage is in sight as a new generation of business managers takes the pressure off head teachers, research suggests.

A survey by the National College for School Leadership reveals a big increase in teachers who want the top job, improving the prospects for the recruitment of head teachers in England over the next decade.

More than 151,000 teachers said that they aspired to headship, up 9 per cent from last year’s figure of 138,000. Ambition is strongest among those under 29. Nearly half (44 per cent) aspire to lead a school, up from just over a third (37 per cent) last year. The findings come after growing concern that schools could face a demographic time bomb in the staff room, with up to 55 per cent of head teachers due to retire in the next ten years.

Steve Munby, chief executive of the National College for School Leadership, said that the survey findings, seen exclusively by The Times, suggested that teachers were accepting that the traditional image of the “hero head”, who managed everything in a school from hiring staff to ordering books, was outdated.

In particular, Mr Munby said that schools were increasingly willing to appoint business managers to their senior leadership team, to share the burden of financial, administrative and procurement work, site management and personnel issues.

This was leaving heads free to concentrate on teaching and learning, and in the process making the job more attractive and fulfilling. “The findings tell a very different story from what we have heard in the past. More people than ever in the profession want to be a head. There has been a cultural shift taking place. Schools are now looking at models of school leadership that are more manageable than in the past,” Mr Munby said.

There are an estimated 8,100 bursars or business managers in schools in England, up from 4,040 in 1997. Six out of ten secondaries and one in eight primary schools have a business manager on theirleadership team. Primary schools not big enough to employ their own business manager often shared one between a group of four or five.

School business managers were able to make huge cost savings, Mr Munby said, often paying several times over for their own salaries, which can range from £28,000 to £60,000.

Research from the University of Hull suggested that, on average, school business managers in the primary phase can generate the equivalent of £60 per pupil per year in additional funding and efficiencies.

A separate study from the management consultancy McKinsey found that school business managers trained by the National College for School Leadership can save up to a third of the time spent by head teachers on work and that they can reinvest up to 5 per cent of the school budget from the efficiency savings they generate.

Mr Munby said that the college, established by Tony Blair to improve school effectiveness, had created a number of school business manager qualifications to help those wanting to switch from the commercial sector.

He said that the college had seen a significant increase in inquiries from middle-ranking professionals in the finance sector who had lost their job as a result of the credit crunch. “I suspect that a lot of these people will want to do a job that can make a positive difference to society. The role of school business manager will be perfect for many of them,” Mr Munby said.

He was convinced, he said, that the existence of school business managers was instrumental in increasing the number of teachers aspiring to be heads, particularly among younger teachers. “The perception that there is more support for head teachers is making teachers keener on the job,” he said. Among those who aspire to headship, 67 per cent agreed that “a lot” of support was savailable to heads, up from 53 per cent in 2007.

“The challenge we face in recruiting heads is huge, but these figures show that we are moving in the right direction,” he said.

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