What is working in higher education worth? David Kernohan’s recent analysis seems to suggest that in some cases, not very much at all.
HESA data reveals that small numbers of academic staff are employed on contracts at or below the government’s National Living Wage.
How can this be? Much has been written about academic salaries recently, and the aim of this article isn’t to unpick the arguments around whether academic staff are paid well, or fairly. But when the data suggests that there are academic roles in our HE institutions which pay so little, it would be remiss to ignore these facts. As someone who likes nothing more than delving into the fine detail of the HESA staff record, I’d like to offer some thoughts on the conclusions we can draw from David’s analysis.
My first thought was that it’s telling that the vast majority of low paid contracts are teaching only – suggesting to me that these are most likely to be junior teaching positions, possibly on fixed term contracts. We know that many universities chose quickly to employ “graduate teaching assistants” or equivalent positions at a scale not seen previously, due to the massive volatility in undergraduate admissions in the last few years.
