‘Devastating’: jobs on the line as Edinburgh cuts £140 million

The University of Edinburgh has announced that it is looking to make “devastating” cuts of around £140 million, adding that further job cuts are to come.

The shock announcement follows an announcement earlier this month in which the university warned staff that “nothing was off the table” as it sought to make financial savings, including school and degree closures.

But now in an all staff email, the university’s principal, Sir Peter Mathieson said that the voluntary severance scheme opened last month would “not be enough” to tackle the university’s finances, and he outlined that the university is forecast to be in an operational deficit in the forthcoming years which “must be reversed”. He said that the university is looking to save around 10 per cent of its annual turnover, equating to around £140 million.

“Whilst this might sound a dauntingly large number, it costs around £120 million a month to run the University of Edinburgh so we are talking about saving not much more than a month’s expenditure annually,” wrote Mathieson.

The university will also be reviewing all capital expenditure, including previously approved projects, and he added that “although recent publicity has focused on our capital expenditure, reducing this would only be a short-term measure to improve our cash position: it would do nothing to address the underlying issues”.

However, the University and College Union (UCU), however, argued that the university should consider using some of its reserves – which according to its accounts total net assets worth £3.1 billion – “rather than cutting staff”.

It previously highlighted that the university – the largest in Scotland – had a turnover of £1.4 billion and posted a £104 million surplus in 2022-23 (excluding movements in pension valuations), as well as a £25 million surplus in 2023-24.

Jo Grady, general secretary of the UCU, said the announcement is “shocking”.

“Professor Mathieson needs to use the billions of pounds the university boasts in wealth to protect jobs, protect provision and protect the university's global reputation. The Scottish Government also needs to call on university management to halt these devastating cuts. Scotland cannot afford to allow one of its great public institutions to engage in academic vandalism of this scale."
UCU members recently issued a vote of no confidence in Mathieson and the university’s senior management, and have lodged a failure to agree with the university after it failed to rule out compulsory redundancies.

Union members at the University of Dundee this week began strike action, after it the provider said job cuts were “inevitable” as it looked to tackle a £30 million deficit. St Andrews, Abertay, Robert Gordon and Heriot-Watt universities, the University of the West of Scotland and the University of Aberdeen have all posted deficits in their most recent accounts.

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com