Rise in teaching-only contracts

The proportion of part-time staff on teaching-only contracts is now more than 60 per cent after climbing almost 4 percentage points in a year, according to a report

March 12, 2015

Data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency’s Staff in Higher Education 2013-14 reveal that the proportion of full-time staff on similar contracts has risen by just 1 percentage point over the same period.

About 61 per cent of all part-time academic staff worked in teaching-only roles in 2013-14, up from 57 per cent in 2012-13. Over the same period, the proportion of part-time staff on teaching and research contracts fell from 30 per cent to 26 per cent.

Meanwhile, the proportion of academics in research-only posts and posts involving neither teaching nor research remained at 12 per cent and 1 per cent respectively.

Universities employed 10 per cent of full-time staff on teaching-only contracts in 2013-14, up from 9 per cent a year earlier. At the same time, the proportion of full-time staff in teaching and research posts fell 2 percentage points, from 62 per cent in 2012-13 to 60 per cent in 2013-14. The proportion of full-time research-only posts grew from 28 per cent in 2012-13 to 29 per cent in 2013-14.

The proportion of full-time academics in roles involving neither teaching nor research remained at 1 per cent.

holly.else@tesglobal.com

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Reader's comments (1)

This might be true in absolute terms and following consideration of yearly rises in each category. However, as a percentage of overall academic staff, the proportion of teaching only contracts has been stable at 25-26% between 2008 and 2014. It is true that there are now less multi-functional academics undertaking both research and teaching, as these contracts as a percentage of all academics has fallen from 51% to 49% over the same period. However, if you are looking to see where these resources have gone, it has been to recruit more research only positions, the percentage of which have increased from 22% to 24%. Percentages are calculated from HESA statistics.

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