How important is teaching experience? I am a PhD student in economics in the UK. Recently, I have been hearing how important teaching experience is to find a job in academia as a lecturer. One needs to submit teaching statements and may be asked about one's teaching philosophy.

Can you please share your experience about how important teaching is in becoming a lecturer? I suppose being a teaching assistent and leading example classes is a big plus. Of course, only if the research part of the PhD is going sufficiently well such that there is time for teaching.

What about schemes like the TSP (The Scholars Programme) of the Brilliant Club where PhD Students visit schools the odd times and give mini courses to interested pupils? Does this count as being committed to teaching or is it neglected due to the low level of difficulty?
Even if the PhD research does not go as planned, I would strongly suggest you to get some teaching experience for a number of reasons:


"One learns best when one teaches" as a translation of the German "Am besten lernt man, wenn man lehrt". Teaching gives you a deeper understanding of many topics, it helped me a lot.
Character building: you as a person will benefit as well from teaching. Speaking publicly is not an issue for me since I taught during my PhD studies, this had a really positive effect on my work outside academia as well.