Number of UK universities delaying pay rises hits new high

Record numbers of UK universities have said that they are unable to afford staff wage increases as the funding difficulties facing the sector come to a head.

This year’s pay uplift is a minimum of 2.5 per cent, rising to 5.7 per cent for the lowest paid, but only £900 was due in August wage packets, with the remainder due to follow next March. As in previous years, universities are able to delay the rise for up to 11 months if they claim financial exigency.

Last year, the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (Ucea) suggested that “half a dozen” institutions were delaying the increase, thought at the time to be the highest number ever.

Raj Jethwa, Ucea’s chief executive, told Times Higher Education that the state of sector finances meant it was “inevitable that more HE institutions than ever are having to use the deferral clause”, and that the total this year has “now moved into double figures”.

Among institutions contacted by THE, the University of Kent – which was forecasting a deficit of around £31 million for the last academic year – confirmed that it had delayed the rise for a second year in a row. The institution eventually paid last year’s increase in February.

A redundancy programme at Kent has led to the closure of courses in areas such as art history and philosophy.

Sheffield Hallam University, which faced strike action at the start of this term over hundreds of job losses, said that it was delaying the rise, arguing that it would “help us to reduce costs significantly and protect more jobs”.

Cardiff Metropolitan University said that it was delaying the rise until July 2025, with senior managers not receiving any increase at all.

The University of Worcester was another institution deferring the increase, with a spokesperson claiming that this had been “forced” by the “the dysfunctional system of higher education funding”.

However, the majority of universities approached by THE confirmed that they were paying the uplift straight away, including a number that deferred last year, such as the universities of Gloucestershire and Wolverhampton.

Roger Seifert, emeritus professor of industrial relations at Wolverhampton, said that the growing number of deferrals was “another indication of how badly managed the HE sector is and how clumsy the HE leaders are”.

This year’s pay offer has been rejected by the main sector union, the University and College Union, but it is yet to indicate whether it will ballot for industrial action.

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com