to ask what lecturers, students & parents think - precarious employment in universities

[morningtoncrescent62]

I've just read this report claiming that universities are using a 'Sports Direct' model to employ lecturers, and the most prestigious universities are the worst. Are the percentages to be believed? The claim is that more than 50% of the staff at Russell Group universities are on precarious contracts which sounds like a huge proportion, and scandalous if it's true or anywhere near true. My DDs finished university before the £9,000 tuition fees (thank goodness!) but if I was a student or a parent now I'd be outraged if I or my children were being taught by people on rubbish pay and conditions which surely can only cost a fraction of the current tuition fees. Or am I being hopelessly naive?

But overall if you look at university budgets (from Oxbridge down to lower ranked universities) it is simply not true that all research is covered by research grants. It is in some fields but not all.

Many universities aim to have no research that is unfunded by research grants. However, this is impossible, unless they are willing to scrap whole departments (humanities, maths, MFL, etc) for whom research grants are relatively small, nowhere near on the scale of engineers and lab scientists.

BTW some research councils, such as STFC, are so desperately short of money that the overheads they pay nowhere near covers the real costs of the research, let alone permanent staff time.

But overall if you look at university budgets (from Oxbridge down to lower ranked universities) it is simply not true that all research is covered by research grants. It is in some fields but not all.

I didn't state that all research is covered by research grants. I'm sure that in some institution research may be covered to some extent by fees. However, where I work and where DH works the money certainly goes the other way and the research funds not only cover research time they also cover some of the time spent teaching. Therefore it is more than irritating if students have the impression that their fees are covering the cost of research.

I dunno, am on fence whether this much matters.

I have worked about 16 yrs on so-called "precarious" contracts in universities. My jobs are FAR more secure than DH's, he has only ever worked in private sector & always had self-employed or permanent positions. It's completely normal in private sector for people to suddenly get sacked in the space of a few days (yes they get redundancy ££££, but still, they can be sacked at any time if the money dries up). Twice DH took voluntary redundancy & the last time wasn't voluntary; he's got high-demand skills & all that in only 17 yrs of work. Whereas my job funding is secure until a set date unless I totally screw up. So I like FTC work. It's a good compliment to the true precariousness of DH's supposed "permanent" jobs.

Zero hours sounds insecure, but folk don't get minimum wage in academia, at least not on paper (actually, when I had a minimum wage job 4 yrs ago, we always put in unpaid overtime too). I get £13/hr on temp extra work at the university, lecturers should be getting more than that. I worked on zero hours in a previous career. It suited me, zero hours contract can suit some people extremely well. All the entrepeneurs I know (small business owners) are effectively on zero hours, too. They never know how much income & work is coming in, either.

Disclaimer: I've never worked at a 'prestigious' Uni, so maybe it really is different there.

Thecompanyofcats

thanks for replying to me, I'm a language teacher so perhaps my skills could be transferred. Marketing sounds like an interesting choice! Most pleased it worked out for you, I'll look into it I think

Yes, friends in the private sector get made redundant just like that. Sent home that day. That doesn't happen in academia. My husband has never had a permanent job - but he's also been continuously employed for 25+ years.

Which is not to say it is all hunky dory either...

I have worked about 16 yrs on so-called "precarious" contracts in universities. My jobs are FAR more secure than DH's, he has only ever worked in private sector & always had self-employed or permanent positions.

I sometimes think this, too: it's certainly the logic that convinced us to start trying for a baby while I'm on a fixed-term contract! However, even if this has some truth in reality, it's not how the world treats you: trying to get a mortgage on a fixed-term contract, for instance, was difficult and we pay a higher interest rate than we'd have been eligible for if I had a permanent contract.

It sounds like you work in admin/research support? I think that is a bit different, if only because if you come to the end of a fixed-term contract there is actually a chance that you'll be redeployed within the university which is not going to happen for a temporary lecturer.

I am on my first fixed term contract at an RG uni having received my PhD last January.

I also have a one year PostDoc, but whilst this is a good title and certainly a boost, it's one without a stipend (yes, really): I am glad to have gotten it, and it should boost my prospects, but it's not something that someone with immediate financial concerns could realistically devote a great deal of time to.

I am in a traditional humanities subject, which I love; what I struggle with is the uncertainty and things I need to be doing in order to secure a job. And the things one needs to do are merely necessary, and far from sufficient, since you will be one of (in some cases, hundreds) applying for the same post.

I am paid the equivalent of the permanent position. The pay is not what concerns me (it is generous for the post), but the uncertainty. So this year is o.k, but what about the next? Last year, there were approximately five jobs in the U.K that I had any business applying for: I had an interview for one, and some of the other candidates had wrote a book on the subject, another had been a lecturer, whereas another had several years postdoc exp. This was for a Teaching Fellowship. Something has gone badly wrong if people who would have been strong candidates for a lectureship in the past are scrabbling around for what is considered to be the first type of post you get post-PhD.

I care about my teaching, and do my best. I have a reasonable balance between that and working on my own research now. If I'm stressed, it's not because of a bad working environment (my dept. is good) but because I need to get publications and that takes time. Journals are often slow to respond, provide no feedback, and you can literally have years where very little appears. I'm getting things "under review", which is something, but I don't have anything to show for it yet.

I am lucky. My partner has a stable, very well-paid job. Life won't be financially difficult should I find myself unemployed next year. For that I am thankful. It's what causes many at my career stage to abandon further attempts to enter academia.

I don't have any complaints about my particular uni. It's all directed at the changes in academia as a whole. I want to punch those in the face who say "Just get publications and work hard". Yes. That was true in prehistoric times when most ageing professor's received their PhD and went straight onto a lectureship. It's not true now. Those same professor's sometimes think that you are somehow not "cut out" for the subject if you fail to secure something right away. You would think those who are paid to THINK would be able to reason a bit better about this.

I am frustrated, anxious, worried, and angry at how things have changed. I do need a plan B next year, and it's not as easy as simply saying "Find a Job" - most won't consider someone with my type of disability, and I can't make that go away. :/

I dont see what's so bad about student fees partially supporting research. The whole purpose ofuniversity teaching is that it is research based. Lecturers are expected to be contributing to the advancement of knowledge in their f

In their field. Sorry my phone is playing up._l

I'm in a support role at a university. My contract is only ever on a yearly basis and depends on the level of research funds that come into our small department. To make sure I can make up my salary for the following year I have to pretty much find my own funds. This is usually by writing myself properly into the funding applications I know I'll be spending a lot of time on (behind the scenes stuff - contracts, finance, reporting etc). My uni won't fund roles like mine from central budgets, even though without us nothing would happen. Funders think we should be covered by central budgets so are often funny about paying for support costs. Anyway, this time of year is always pretty stressy as my current contract is to 31 Dec.

I also think it varies from subject to subject. I'm well aware that the job market for my subject is much more favourable than others. But it is also one reason why I went in that direction at the point where I had a choice.

I was stuck in short term contracts for three years after finishing my PhD, cobbling together a terribly small income from teaching and post docs and higher education reach-out to schools. It was incredibly stressful and demoralising, not least as I approached my thirties unable to support myself financially and therefore relying on my parents. Finally I decided enough was enough and managed to get a job in a related private-sector field. I had more interviews in three months trying to get into this sector than I had in three years in academia - not because I was poorly qualified as a researcher but because my PhD was in such a tiny field that there were only one or two jobs a year I could realistically apply for. That was six years ago, and I can honestly say, no matter how much my current role saps my will to live at times, it's a hundred times better than struggling for a permanent role in academia. I'm so glad I was able to make the leap into another sector.

if you come to the end of a fixed-term contract there is actually a chance that you'll be redeployed within the university which is not going to happen for a temporary lecturer.

Why not? I'm only a lowly RA so I guess I don't know what life is like for faculty (I drive the research, write the papers & my name goes first. Some contact with students). At my Uni, temporary contracts are max 3 months long. Anything longer there are certain rules when contract ends, like guaranteed at least one job interview at same Uni.

Medicine is a bit of a kitchen sink, I suppose. We have faculty who are primarily geographer, anthropologist, sociologist or economist, not just folk with an MBBS.

ah, just realised LisaSimp probably included FTC work as "temporary"; "temporary" means something else at my Uni.

I suspect some kind of "redeployment list" is pretty common at most unis, but yes, seems to depend on previous contact length. This one at Leeds says minimum 12 months previous employment.

I started off as an hourly paid lecturer.... paid for up to 22 contact hours with students and after 5 years was made permanent and full time.... But 70 hour weeks are not abnormal.... the stress is unreal as we can produce the quality we need to... I'm in charge of some 120 credits and contribute to more.... sounds easy but all for £33k.... not bad salary but at the rate I'm going I'll be completely burnt out soon

These fixed contacts were just coming in when I was a graduate. At first we were told we had to pay our dues by doing 1-2 of these fixed contracts before laniding the dream permanent job for life's then it all went tits up very fast. The contacts themselves became 9 month long, the job she extended from 1-2 to 3-4 to never ending and at different parts of the country making it very difficult to buy a home or have a family, the job description became more strictly teaching focused with a very heavy burden which makes it a downward spiral, I.e. you have to take the nine month job in the hopes of getting a permanent post later, but you spend all your time teaching so can t publish which makes you less competitive for the permanent posts and more likely to get another temporary post.

Things are definitely worse than when I was on the job market 10 years ago, and they were starting to look bad then.

Although I don't know what I think about those numbers, given including "non-teaching staff" would include all postdocs which make up a huge part of the research work-force. Depending on the field, a FT academic would typically have at least one postdoc working for them, usually more, so that hits it at 50% right there. But I'm also seeing more and more 'serial postdocs', people applying for their 3rd or 4th fixed-term 3-5 year position, who then make the job market even harder for those who just got their PhDs (as someone with 12 years research experience and proven record of publication may seem more safe than a freshly-minted PhD who might have published 1-2 papers from their thesis). And so you've got people in their late 30's and even 40's still scrabbling for these positions. I think it's a real shame.

And I've just been shocked to hear that someone in my dept who has been acting as a FT academic while on his personally-obtained fellowship - hired as a Reader even - is being let go at the end of his fellowship because he didn't get any grants in his 3 years here. And we let another lecturer-fellow go this summer for the same reason.

Although I agree the tution thing is a red-herring - we actually had a talk from central admin back when it started explaining to us how we now lose money on every student we teach, since the new tution plus the reduced gov't funding was something like £2-3K/year less than the cost to teach one student a year. I didn't follow entirely; it was far too confusing. And somebody from our dept asked if the Uni should just stop teaching all together since it was a money-loser and the admin person couldn't give a straight answer. So I'm not sure I really believe their numbers. But in any case, it's not like the Uni's are now gettting any more money; if anything, they're getting less and instead of being paid from everyone's taxes, it's just being paid more directly by those who learn there. But I'm pretty sure it's not subsidising the research, at least at my Uni, it's the other way round.

but if I was a student or a parent now I'd be outraged if I or my children were being taught by people on rubbish pay and conditions which surely can only cost a fraction of the current tuition fees

The problem is that it's not quite so simple. Just some pointers:

• Fees aren't just paying for face to face hours of tuition. They pay for: libraries & huge yearly licenses for all sorts of electronic resources as well as books; labs; lecture theatres; offices, computers; desks & chairs; security & safety staff & equipment; teaching buildings & their maintenance; the maintenance of university grounds; lighting; heating; the social/recreational facilities; support for learning & physical disabilities; counselling & well-being services; bursaries; 'student life' events; internship sponsorship; travel grants for undergrad dissertations; field trips; teaching materials & consumables; office consumables; Admissions Days; healthcare - and so on ...

• A lot of PhD students are included in those figures. PhD students won't get post-doctoral jobs without some teaching experience.

• There's a mix of the "Hourly paid" and the short-term (1, 2, 3 year) contracts in the figures. Within reason, these are important types of employment in the mix.

Just because the staff teaching undergrads are PhD students or tutors on short-term contracts does not* mean that students are short-changed in terms of quality. Some of the best teaching I've seen is from my graduate teaching assistants. Arguably, they're closer in age & experience to the students than I am as a grizzled old Prof.

• Sometimes, the only way we can get industry specialists is on short-term or hourly paid contracts. If someone has a reasonable source of freelance employment, why would they tie themselves down to a Lectureship on £33,000 pa? But they might be happy doing input into a course of say, 20 hours over 10 weeks of a teaching term.

• Most people who complete PhDs do not get full-time standard academic posts (contracted full-time for teaching & research). We need to stop thinking that it's automatic that a PhD means a Lectureship. In my field (in the Humanities) there are now far more post-doc positions than when I graduated into a recession in the early 1990s. And if you're good enough, and lucky, you will eventually get a post. Not all fields are like this, however. Some of the case studies in the article - well, my advice to them would be to seek full-time employment in other fields.

But yes, most full-time academics see what is happening and do not like it!

But the standard tuition fee for a Home/EU student actually does not cover what most courses cost: I see the budgets, I know what my department's cost per student is. There is overall less money coming into the system, and yet somehow students & their parents think that because they are paying £9k the universities are getting more money. We are not.

And the whipping up of higher education as a consumer product a new dark ages really means we have to spend more money on things like wooing parents at Open Days/Admissions Days, offering bursaries & hardship funds, beefing up counselling & well-being services because students are not prepared for the toughness of university study. My university spends a lot of money on Security patrols of the town most nights of the week, picking up drunk & vomiting students outside the main student nightclubs & getting them home safely (at no charge). And so on.

These fixed contacts were just coming in when I was a graduate. At first we were told we had to pay our dues by doing 1-2 of these fixed contracts before laniding the dream permanent job for life's then it all went tits up very fast.

They may have just came into your subject when you graduated but in science subjects it has been the norm for decades all around the world for researchers to need to do 4-8 of postdoctoral research before getting a permanent position. Across all subjects it has been the norm for decades that only a small fraction of PhD students can get permanent jobs. It has actually been easier to get jobs in the UK over recent years, due to student expansion, than it has been in other countries and in other time periods.

I agree with many of custard's points. I would add that the statistics in the OP's link are completely misleading as they mix up researchers on research council funded 2-5 year research contracts with those being paid for teaching by the hour. Some figures also include PhD students who are paid a full studentship for research and top up their incomes by doing an hour or two of teaching per week. There is nothing wrong with research council 2-5 year researcher positions, or giving PhD students teaching experience. This is not in the same category as having people teach by the hour long-term.

On the other hand, it is people's choice to do the latter. Prospective academics have to be realistic: only a very small percentage of PhD graduates will get permanent academic positions. If you are hanging around on a few hours teaching, then you are most likely not a strong candidate for permanent positions. If by contrast you have a 3 year research fellowship from a prestigious scheme, you may well be on track for a permanent position.

BTW the statistics on temporary contracts also include very specialised tuition. For example, for music students it is usual to have instrumental tuition. There is no way a university can employ a full-time teacher for an obscure instrument, so they pay a peripatetic teacher by the hour, just as schools would do.

Similarly, a university might not have the in-house expertise for a specific part of a course (industry related etc) so they hire somebody from outside to deliver just that part of the course, but the person they hire actually has a full-time job elsewhere, does this as an extra.

It would actually be very harmful for education if temporary contracts/teaching by the hour was banned completely - my university has said that we would simply stop teaching some courses if that happened. What should happen is that Athena SWAN and related activities should break down the statistics of temporary contracts and flag up what fraction are actually problematic.

Prospective academics have to be realistic: only a very small percentage of PhD graduates will get permanent academic positions. If you are hanging around on a few hours teaching, then you are most likely not a strong candidate for permanent positions. If by contrast you have a 3 year research fellowship from a prestigious scheme, you may well be on track for a permanent position.

I think perhaps this is pessimistic?

I can think of four people off the top of my head (including me!) in my department whose career histories include hanging around for a few hours of teaching. One of them has been a permanent lecturer at Oxbridge for a few years, the other is coming to the end of a 26 month cover lectureship at Oxbridge, the third has just got a permanent lectureship at Oxbridge mid-career, and the fourth has a one-year post at Oxbridge which is the latest in a line of similar one year posts interspersed with temp teaching.

You cannot easily tell, I think.

I can appreciate a lot must depend on the length of time for which you end up doing that casual teaching, but a period of casual teaching in itself isn't proof you're not a strong candidate to be made permanent.

Again, this depends on the field, and you need to rely on advice from your peers/supervisor on what the situation is in your own field.

Hanging round for a while on casual teaching in humanities in Oxbridge might well be reasonable.

But hanging round on casual teaching in maths/sciences is almost never reasonable - any strong candidate should be able to get a research fellowship. Typically we would get several hundred applications for any permanent position. The shortlist would be made up of people from "top" research fellowships at "top" institutions, who have already gotten external funding and have very strong publication lists. If you aren't shooting near that level, then you have to be honest with yourself about the chances of success. (BTW there is very little casual teaching in maths/sciences because of the large number of research postdocs - one can almost always spread out teaching amongst these postdocs, just by having them do a few hours per term each. Oxbridge has some part-time college teaching positions but pretty much nowhere else does this.)

Ah, I see. I'm not maths/science and I do recognise it's very different.

(Mind you, now I think, I know someone whose CV includes a bit of casual teaching, and who is now an associate prof in Maths. But his PhD is from about 2008/9, so perhaps things were different then.)

I thought fellowships were only avail. for max 1st 4 yrs after PhD completed (or some time limit like that). All the RAs in my office are ineligible, anyway.

I was shocked to (recently) find out that some UK unis have PhD students teaching u-grads. Even Masters students teach where I'm from (since >> 30 yrs ago), but I didn't know UK had started doing it too.