From the blackboard to the backbenches: how physics teacher Dave Robertson became an MP

Physicists who go into politics are a rare breed. Most famously there was Angela Merkel, who was chancellor of Germany for 16 years. Climate physicist Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo was elected Mexican president in a landslide win in 2024. Alok Sharma, meanwhile, was business secretary in the UK government and president of the COP-26 climate summit.

But Dave Robertson is even more unusual. Having originally studied physics at the University of Liverpool in the UK, he worked as a physics teacher in Birmingham for almost a decade. After spells in the trade-union movement and local politics, Robertson has been the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Lichfield, Burntwood and the Villages since 2024.

He’s not the only physicist currently serving as an MP. Others include Layla Moran – another former physics teacher – who’s been Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon since 2017. There’s also shadow home secretary Chris Philp, who’s been Conservative MP for Croydon South since 2015, and the Labour MP for North-West Cambridgeshire Sam Carling.

But Robertson is the only physics-teacher-turned-MP in the current Labour government, which came to power at the 2024 general election. It won a 174-seat landslide majority, though Robertson’s own victory was wafer-thin. He squeaked home by just 810 votes over his Conservative rival Michael Fabricant, who had been Lichfield’s MP for more than 25 years.

In an interview with Physics World, Robertson admits he had little idea of what the job of MP would involve (see box). Describing the British parliament as “a truly bonkers and bizarre workplace”, he divides his time between Lichfield and London. “I try to do four days in my constituency a week and four days in parliament. That doesn’t add up, but if can split my Mondays, I can just about make it work.”

Into the classroom

Brought up in Lichfield, Robertson began his physics degree at Liverpool in 2004. Saying he “loved every second” of his time there, Robertson particularly enjoyed nuclear physics. But it was a science-communication course, which Robertson admits he only took because he thought it would be easy marks, that made him realize how much he liked taking complicated concepts and explaining them to non-experts.

After graduating in 2007 and taking a year off, Robertson returned to the Midlands to do a teacher-training degree at the University of Birmingham. The course was largely practical, with Robertson spending most of his time getting hands-on teaching experience at various schools in Birmingham, including one – Great Barr School – that he ended up working at.

Roberston spent seven years as a physics teacher at Great Barr, which was then one of the largest secondary schools in the UK. With about 2500 pupils, it had as many as 16 classes in each year group, from age 11 to 16. Great Barr was also able to offer physics to 17 and 18 year olds who stayed on to do A-levels. “We’d always have one physics group or occasionally two in year 12.”

Rather than just focusing on the syllabus, Robertson would try to make his lessons “loud and engaging” to emphasize the excitement and sheer bizarreness of physics. Claiming he has good control of his voice, Robertson says he would also “put on accents and do silly voices” to keep pupils entertained.

He particularly enjoyed teaching a course called “Science in the news”, where pupils would look into the impact of a particular topic in the syllabus on the wider world. “That was wonderful,” Robertson recalls. “It was effectively a literature review, which let us teach a lot of the skills that we want to see kids developing when they’re learning sciences. It was fascinating.”

Not all pupils enjoyed physics. “For some kids, physics wasn’t their thing – it’s not what drove them,” he says. But he regarded it as “an absolute privilege” to teach students who were engaged with the subject, especially those who went on to study physics at university. One ex-pupil even contacted Robertson after he became an MP to say she’d just passed her PhD. “She’d dropped a note into her thesis thanking Mr Robertson for being an inspiring physics teacher.”

Political moves

Robertson’s time at Great Barr came to an end in 2016 when the school was making job cuts and he accepted voluntary redundancy. After doing supply teaching for about a year, he got wind of a post at the NASUWT teachers’ trade union, which he’d been school rep for at Great Barr. “It was one of those jobs I’d have regretted if I didn’t apply for it,” he says.

It was while working for the NASUWT that Robertson got involved in local politics. He joined the Labour Party and in 2019 was elected to Lichfield District Council, which was then run by the Conservative Party. He also stood in that year’s UK general election, but was beaten by Michael Fabricant, losing by more than 23,000 votes. “I don’t talk about that result,” Robertson jokes.

Robertson is now one of more than 400 Labour MPs and spends most of his time on local Lichfield matters. “My number one focus is very much what’s going on in my constituency, and that will always be the case,” he says. “But I’m very fortunate to be one of a very small number of parliamentarians who’ve got a science background, let alone a physics background.”

That interest saw Robertson host an exhibition in the Houses of Parliament, organized by the Institute of Physics (IOP), in June 2025 to support the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ). “Every MP and member of the Lords would have been able to walk past and see that it was the IYQ,” he says. The exhibition was, for him, a great opportunity “to show decision-makers that the UK is one of the world leaders in quantum”.

That month Robertson also hosted a hands-on display of quantum technology for MPs and members of the House of Lords, again organized by the IOP. At the end of 2025 he sponsored another parliamentary reception, this time for physics-based companies that had won IOP Business Awards. “The event was absolutely wonderful,” says Robertson. “Seeing some of the cutting-edge science from companies on show was astonishing.”

Robertson’s focus on science extends to his membership of various cross-party parliamentary groups, including ones about nuclear energy and space. He is also chair of a new group he has set up devoted to quantum science and technology. As a backbench MP, Robertson cannot dictate or implement policy, but he says such groups “can help build up a critical mass of interest in parliament to drive an agenda forwards”.

With his background in teaching, Robertson is also keen to highlight the UK-wide shortage of physics teachers. While at Great Barr School – now rebranded as Fortis Academy – he was lucky. “I remember having a physics group meeting,” he says, “where there were six of us around the table and thinking ‘This is more [physics teachers] than most cities have’.”

As a 2025 IOP report pointed out, a quarter of state schools in England have no specialist physics teachers. In fact, more than half of physics lessons for 14–16 year olds are taught by teachers who never studied a physics-related subject beyond the age of 18. Despite some improvement, only 31% of the government’s target number of physics teachers have been recruited, while 44% of new physics teachers quit within five years.

It’s the responsibility of me and other MPs with a scientific background to spark an interest in physics.

Dave Robertson MP

Robertson admits that getting the lack of physics teachers on the radar is an uphill battle. “There are 650 MPs but have they all thought about the importance of getting more physics teachers in the classroom? Probably not, if I’m honest. That’s why it’s the responsibility of me and other MPs with a scientific background to spark an interest in physics and unearth the next Paul Dirac or Isaac Newton.”

Robertson would also like to get on the influential science innovation and technology select committee to spread the message about the importance of physics. But he is wary of spending too much time in parliament with other MPs with a scientific background. “It’s more helpful if all of us have tentacles that spread out into other groups and parties and sections of parliament.”

Spreading the message

For the wider physics community, Robertson believes that physicists need to speak out more strongly about how they can tackle many of the world’s problems, notably climate change. “It’s the biggest issue at the moment and a lot of the solutions are going to come from physics,” he says. “Getting more physicists engaged with decision-makers will not only be good for the future of the economy but ultimately for the future of the planet.”

As for Robertson’s own future, he knows that a career in politics is precarious. Voters rarely hold politicians in high regard and will often boot them out on a whim. It’s therefore hard for any MP to have a predictable career path or plan too far ahead. Robertson himself admits to having “no big aspirations” to be a cabinet minister, which is perhaps just as well given that his majority at the last election was so thin.

With the next general election not due to take place until 2029, Robertson is for now focusing squarely on his role as a backbench constituency MP. “The job I have is just about the most wonderful in the world,” he says. “I want to keep doing it because there’s some wonderful things I can do for my community, whether it’s physics, quantum or football.” But if Robertson did get kicked out, at least he can go back into the classroom.

“Rumour has it, we could do with a few more physics teachers.”

• Dave Robertson also features on the 19 March 2026 episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast

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