More than 10,000 UK university staff now earn over £100,000

Pressure group attacks ‘shocking’ rise in ‘fat cats’, but institutions insist it is right that they offer competitive salaries

October 23, 2024
Patrick Jack
Monopoly
Source: iStock/txking

More than 10,000 UK university staff earned over £100,000 last year, a significant increase on previous tallies, according to new figures.

Freedom of Information requests submitted by the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) pressure group found that at least 10,447 staff members across 105 institutions received in excess of £100,000 in total remuneration in 2023-24.

Of these, at least a quarter claimed more than £150,000 in total remuneration.

The TPA estimates that the total cost of the 10,447 staff receiving more than £100,000 in 2023-24 is estimated to be over £1.2 billion. The real figure is expected to be much higher because 59 institutions either denied the FOI request or failed to respond in time.

ADVERTISEMENT

Among providers that responded to the FOIs in both 2024 and 2020 – when the TPA last conducted this research – the total number of high-paid staff increased by 69 per cent. And the number earning more than £150,000 swelled by 79 per cent.

The figures were revealed as universities embarked on a fresh round of cost-cutting measures, designed to mitigate the impact of the decline in international student numbers and the falling real-terms value of domestic tuition fees.

ADVERTISEMENT

According to a tracker kept by the Queen Mary University of London branch of the University and College Union, about half of the sector has redundancy and restructuring programmes in place.

Imperial College London currently has the most high earners on its books (1,231), followed by King’s College London (574) and the University of Bristol (560).

RankProviderNumber of staff earning £100,000+

The top of the list was dominated largely by research-intensive institutions in the Russell Group. With 375 salaries above £100,000, City, University of London had the most outside this group.

The TPA calculated that London Business School had the most top earners relative to its student population.

ADVERTISEMENT

Shimeon Lee, a researcher at the TPA, said the number of “university fat cats” had gone through a “shocking surge” in recent years.

“In many institutions, students are being given an increasingly poor service, leaving them in significant debt but without the employment prospects expected, yet at the same time the top brass are benefiting from surging pay packets,” he said.

“University bosses need to get these taxpayer-subsidised salaries under control and focus on providing students with the quality education that they deserve.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Previous analysis by Times Higher Education found that the average university vice-chancellor’s pay package increased by 5 per cent in 2022-23 to £325,000.

It was also recently revealed that a record number of providers have said they are unable to afford staff wage increases as a result of pressing financial issues.

Raj Jethwa, chief executive of the Universities and Colleges Employers Association, said the TPA data covers a four-year period that has seen pay levels increase across the economy.

“HEIs employ highly educated and skilled colleagues at all levels, and despite the sector’s financial challenges, they rightly aim to pay all employees at competitive salary levels.”

ADVERTISEMENT

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com

Read more about
Read more about: 
Employment
University funding/finances

Register to continue

Why register?

  • Registration is free and only takes a moment
  • Once registered, you can read 3 articles a month
  • Sign up for our newsletter
Register
Please Login or Register to read this article.

Related articles

Reader's comments (10)

#1 Submitted by acerpacer on October 23, 2024 - 1:01pm
At least one Russell group university is missing from this list! Are these academics or Professional services staff? Does this include the market top-ups or supplements? How many academics on 0.2 contracts (signed on for the REF) if converted into full-time equivalent would exceed the 100K mark and how many of those are actually based in the UK?
#2 Submitted by kjk on October 23, 2024 - 1:53pm
Despite being a lowly paid member of Professional Services staff whose salary is nothing like a comparative position in a different sector, it has to be said that some of the staff earning these large salaries are amongst the best in the world at what they do. Compare what they get to the salaries paid to footballers or entertainers and it is laughable. I think the issue is with the senior administrators who are getting big money for just trawling out tired old strategies and are never accountable for the failures.
#3 Submitted by leon black on October 24, 2024 - 8:09am
I'm not sure that the TPA's work really counts as research. It's a political attack masquerading as research, and it's a shame to see the THE falling for it.
#4 Submitted by andy.buckley on October 24, 2024 - 8:51am
I support the other comment on the TPA, which is an attack and on past record likely to be methodologically dubious as well as framed without important context. Here, for example, no attempt to compare to salaries for equivalent qualification, experience and responsibility in the private sector. There is also a framing of "fat cats" without breaking down who is receiving the highest salaries (I'd be interested to know what fraction are those doing the teaching and research core business), plus the use of a headliney fixed £100k figure being designed to creating an attack even if all that's going on is inflation.
#5 Submitted by An Academic Somewhere on October 24, 2024 - 9:12am
THE shares its ideological convictions and direction with the TPA, no surprise they peddle their propaganda. On the substance and rigor of such reports by TPA, everything has been said above. Other media in the UK will lap this up too as they usually do, I am afraid.
#6 Submitted by Concerned Academic 77 on October 24, 2024 - 10:52am
The problem isn’t that £100k+ salaries are unreasonable when compared with other areas of high skill employment, but that but that very many employees in HE are underpaid and that real talent and leadership should be used to improve the situation for all in the sector rather than manoeuvring to feather their own nests? Sadly, recent history has shown how poor the quality of some HE management is, for example causing widespread anger by attacking the USS pension scheme by simply accepting rather than interrogating flawed or inadequate data. Even the current financial crisis, or a version of it, in HE should have been foreseeable well in advance to genuinely talented senior leaders, as should have been the steps needed to protect against it. Lack of accountability is key – genuine added value warrants a salary to match, but unfortunately value is added far less often than it needs to be, hence this salary data is of concen.
#7 Submitted by acerpacer on October 24, 2024 - 11:30am
The ones missing from this list - is that a deliberate omission by the producers of the list or did the institutions refuse to respond to the FOI request?
#8 Submitted by THEMike1234 on October 24, 2024 - 6:48pm
Agree in part with the aim of TPA in providing a snapshots £100k + salaries in the sector. I don't mind people getting over this threshold so long as they are good. Unfortunately in the mix of this group of high earners are the usual gang of duffers who bring no added value. Rather they act as a dead weight on the greater HE project. I know loads of really good academics and PS staff who are underpaid and unappreciated. I know of one recently promoted PS staff member who has taken to wearing shiny waistcoats and dispensing gobbets of managespeak wisdom to all and sundry They have taken these from those books they flog in WH Smith on effective habits of successful fraud types.
#9 Submitted by THEMike1234 on October 24, 2024 - 6:48pm
Agree in part with the aim of TPA in providing a snapshots £100k + salaries in the sector. I don't mind people getting over this threshold so long as they are good. Unfortunately in the mix of this group of high earners are the usual gang of duffers who bring no added value. Rather they act as a dead weight on the greater HE project. I know loads of really good academics and PS staff who are underpaid and unappreciated. I know of one recently promoted PS staff member who has taken to wearing shiny waistcoats and dispensing gobbets of managespeak wisdom to all and sundry They have taken these from those books they flog in WH Smith on effective habits of successful fraud types.
#10 Submitted by Anonymous Reader on October 28, 2024 - 2:08pm
The foot of this table makes for interesting reading, and not in the way that the Taxpayers' Alliance intended. Peruse the table and you will see just how unrepresentative the universities named in the article are of the sector as a whole. Not only are there small specialist institutions where as few as 1 or 2 members of staff earn over £100K, it is striking that there are plenty of quite sizeable universities where well under 30 staff earn over this amount, in a number of cases closer to 10 staff. There are enough such institutions for the mid-table position to be only around 26 staff on over £100K. Since some of the universities concerned employ over 3000 people, their chance of earning £100K (which, for older readers, let's remember is only about £50K in early 2000s prices) look as little as 0.5% in some universities - ie basically a handful of senior managers, no mere professors. Given that in the UK economy as a whole, around 4% of workers are now paid £100K, the Taxpayers' Alliance's own figures show that most universities are far less likely than other sectors to overpay their staff - despite universities employing some of the highest qualified people in the country, many on less than half of the £100K focused on here.

You might also like

Sponsored

Featured jobs

See all jobs
ADVERTISEMENT