More than 16,000 new secondary school spaces are needed within seven years to accommodate new pupils starting primary education, official figures reveal.
Data analysed by BBC News shows the scale of the challenge to meet rising demand by the time current four-year-olds move schools.
Surrey County Council and Birmingham City Council face the biggest shortfalls.
The Department for Education (DfE) said £7bn is committed to new places.
Official figures reveal the number of applicants starting primary school in 2016 exceeds the number of current secondary school places by at least 16,284.
The analysis covers 134 areas but excludes 16 councils where there is a "three-tier" system, as the DfE did not account for children in middle schools, which typically cater for 9-13 year-olds.
Figures released last Thursday show that one in six families missed out on their first choice of secondary school.
The DfE said local authorities had plans for 52,000 more secondary school places by 2018.
However, the National Union of Teachers said the problem of school places was being "ignored by the government".
Kevin Courtney, acting General Secretary, said: "It is resulting in overcrowded classrooms, schools expanding beyond an optimum size and children travelling further to school. Population changes are not a new phenomenon and local authorities, who are responsible for providing sufficient school places, have traditionally been able to plan to meet rising and falling demand. The significant factor in the current situation is that, since 2010, the government has undermined local authorities' legal powers to deliver new school places. This is an abdication of responsibility."
