What Is the Concurso Externo de Docentes in Portugal?

The Concurso Externo de Docentes is the national competition through which Portugal’s Ministerio da Educacao fills permanent teaching posts, the Quadros, in the public school network. It is run by the Direcao-Geral da Administracao Escolar (DGAE) and opens each year through an aviso de abertura published in the Diario da Republica. Candidates apply electronically through SIGRHE, the DGAE’s human resources platform, and are ranked against each other by a formula called graduacao profissional rather than by sitting a written test.

Who administers the concurso externo?

The DGAE, the Direcao-Geral da Administracao Escolar, is the body that opens, runs and publishes the results of the concurso externo. It publishes the aviso de abertura, the practical guides candidates use to fill in SIGRHE, and the successive lists of admitted and excluded candidates. For the current cycle, candidates should always check the DGAE recruitment portal directly, since deadlines and vacancy numbers change every year.

Who can apply?

A candidate needs the qualificacao profissional for the specific grupo de recrutamento they want, that is, the professional qualification tied to one subject and teaching level, obtained under Decreto-Lei 79/2014 and the successor habilitacoes legislation. Candidates without that professional qualification but who meet the academic requirements for a group may still be admitted in some cycles, subject to sitting a Prova de Aptidao Pedagogica, covered in our guide to the PAP. The full eligibility picture, including nationality and registration requirements, is set out in our concurso externo requirements guide.

How does the concurso externo differ from other routes?

The concurso externo is for candidates not yet integrated into any Quadro, while a separate concurso interno exists for teachers already holding a permanent post who want to move. There are also two temporary-hiring mechanisms that run alongside it: Contratacao Inicial and Reserva de Recrutamento, which fill fixed-term posts rather than permanent ones. We compare the external and internal competitions in detail in concurso externo versus concurso interno.

What actually happens during the process?

Candidates register on SIGRHE, select the grupos de recrutamento they qualify for, and order their preferences over school groupings (agrupamentos de escolas) or Quadros de Zona Pedagogica (QZP). The DGAE then ranks every candidate within each group by graduacao profissional, a score built from academic classification and years of teaching service, which we explain step by step in how graduacao profissional is calculated. Placement follows a national matching cycle covered in our guide to how SIGRHE placement works.

What happens if a candidate is not placed?

Vacancies that remain unfilled after the concurso externo, or teaching hours that appear later in the school year, are covered by school-level and reserve mechanisms rather than the national concurso itself. The largest of these is the Bolsa de Contratacao de Escola, through which individual schools hire directly. Many first-time candidates apply to both the concurso externo and these fallback routes in the same year.

Practical steps once the aviso de abertura is published

Once the official notice appears, candidates typically have a fixed window to register on SIGRHE, upload supporting documents including a photograph in the required format, which our photo resizer tool can help prepare correctly, and confirm the grupos de recrutamento and preference lists before the deadline closes. Because these windows are short and do not reopen, an exam countdown set to the closing date is a simple way to avoid missing it.

Frequently asked questions

Is the concurso externo the same every year? No. Each cycle has its own aviso de abertura, its own vacancy numbers, and sometimes its own procedural rules, so a candidate should read the current notice on the DGAE portal rather than rely on a previous year’s version.

Does a foreign teaching qualification count? Recognition depends on whether the qualification has been validated as equivalent to a Portuguese qualificacao profissional under the applicable habilitacoes legislation; this is assessed case by case through the DGAE’s registration process, not automatically.

Can a candidate apply for more than one grupo de recrutamento? Yes, subject to holding the qualifying habilitacao for each group applied for, and the aviso de abertura for the specific cycle setting out any limits.

Where is the exam page for this competition on this site? See our Concurso Externo de Docentes exam page for the full eligibility, stages and official links summary.

What is the official source to confirm current details? The DGAE portal and the aviso de abertura published in the Diario da Republica are the only authoritative sources; figures reported by news outlets or unions should be cross-checked against them.