UK academics enjoy better pensions, annual leave entitlements and other benefits than those in comparative sectors but lose out when it comes to precarity and pay gaps, a new analysis has found.
The Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) and SUMS consultancy conducted a comparative study of academics’ pay and conditions in the context of several years of industrial action in which there have been repeated demands for higher pay and a reversal of cuts to pension benefits.
The study – published on 25 May – shows that, at £47,300, the average salary of higher education teaching professionals is higher than the £38,281 earned on average by colleagues in further education.
It is also higher than the overall 2022 median annual pay of £33,000 for full-time employees and the pay of professions such as nurses, therapists and midwives.
