Senior University Lecturer salary - shocked!

[salary]

I've just seen an advert for the above position, at a nearby Uni. The salary is anywhere between £39k and £64k, based on whether it is filled by a grade 7, 8 or 9 person.

I am genuinely shocked at how low this salary is, for such a high profile role. Do they get huge bonuses or something?

nope, senior academics with doctorates have always been paid a proportionately low salary for the very high level of expertise they have!

Ha! Welcome to the world of academics…

It’s crazy. My DP taught at university abroad and when he came to live here would try to persuade to switch from teaching secondary/sixth form to university as it would be more money. He couldn’t believe I earn more as a UPS3 teacher than I would teaching at university, and with better terms and conditions too (which is saying something!).

I don't understand this question. I didn't think anyone was under the impression academia was well paid?

Yes this, academics aren’t rolling in it are they?!

And a lot of them are/will be at risk of redundancy soon.

The money is in admin, not the actual business of teaching undergraduates.

Ha ha ha ha. No big bonuses. The salaries for UK academics are shit. Most of us have been on zero hours contracts or what they cheekily call .5s which are technically half time and half pay but the hours stack up. Friends of mine on full time contracts regularly do 60-70 hour weeks for what I think is lousy pay.

No, it's very poorly paid. There are no bonuses available - what would they be for?

It's one of the reasons why (like @AtomicBlondeRose I spent my career teaching A level, rather than lecturing at University. I do have a Doctorate, but the career progression and pay is poor in Universities.

In addition, it meant moving into a large (expensive) city and I didn't want to.

The pay is crap. It also doesn’t increase in value if you are at all loyal to your institution.

DH has three degrees, speaks 5 languages (one dead), edits journals, supervises PhDs, external examines for other universities, does peer review, churns out top rated research for the REF, is literally the expert in his field, does university internal admin, gets amazing teaching feedback, his students do well, and he got promoted…

…and the value of what he earned after 15 years when looked at in the context of inflation, was exactly the same as when he started. No improvement.

Oh I have noticed students and their parents assume we are very well paid. My job looks so glamorous - loads of students tell me they want to do what I do. I start by brightly telling them my pay. They change their minds in about 10 seconds.

No, no bonuses.

There are much higher ranks than SL though, SL is a kind of mid career position with Reader and Professor (which has different grades) being more senior and more highly paid.

But yeah, academic salaries can be a bit shit.

This is the salary! And definitely no bonuses!!

Most lecturing staff will be grade 7 or 8 as grade 9 tends to be for staff who have either been promoted to Reader or who have some leadership responsibility.

Academics used to be relatively well paid about 50 years ago but salaries have not proportionately increased as much as in other areas.

Any idea how to dissuade our kids from academia. DS1 just can't resist it. He knows (from me!) the pay is shit, the hours are endless, the expertise is disgracefully undervalued and taken for granted by the non academic admin bosses. But he doesn't want to do anything else.

Not always. Two friends of mine were recently made professors. Not a penny increase in salary. This is at one of the Uks very top unis...

No bonuses, and increasingly they're having to pay for their own research trips, conferences etc, or not have them. DH is a professor, even the most senior ones in his department rarely reach 100k, you get a piffling 3k extra for taking on onerous additional responsibilities like head of department. No-one does it for the money!

Don't forget the extras that really add up.

Member contributions: Reduced from 9.8% to 6.1% of salary each month
Employer contributions:14.5% of each employee's salary each month
Annual value: A one-off £215 uplift
Lump sum boost: A one-off £645 boost
Annual accrual: Increased to 1/75 of salary for pension and 3/75 for lump sum benefit
Salary threshold: Increased from £41,004 to £70,308
Inflation protection: The maximum annual increase for the defined benefit part of the pension was raised to 10%

However, I will say that it is a VERY flexible job for the most part and some institutions offer very generous annual leave.

I have to travel internationally an awful lot and everyone assumes I fly business but unfortunately it's economy all the way so nowhere near as glamorous as people think😂

I assumed they earned a fortune. I left school with 5 crap o'levels, obviously didn't go to Uni, but I work for myself and I earn more than this, even at the grade 9 level. I'm floored!

Gosh that's low. Senior lecturers start on €87K in my (non-UK) university.

We have too many universities. We need to get rid of the failing ones and pay academics in the remaining ones what they deserve.

Thanks for the mess you created Tony Blair. Your son managed to make millions from your mistakes.

My son has a Masters in Engineering, and at only 27 years old, he is now earning more than the Uni lecturers now. How bizarre!

Yes, thanks to Tony Blair.

I am bias as the father of my child was a senior lecturer (I was raped at university). However, this individual was on 50k. He had 10 hours of teaching a week. Apart from that, there was marking 2 sets of essays a year. Plus exam marking in the summer. His teaching happened to fall on three days (so a three day week). Apart from that he did some presentations and got paid extra, plus press releases (paid extra) and some publications (royalty money). He taught the same course year after year so only needed to update slides every now and again. He openly admitted to me that his job was cushy (except for marking during exam season). He also benefited from extra long holidays. I was gobsmacked at how little work he did. (In total 15-20 hours a week).

HOWEVER, I also know senior lecturers who went above and beyond for their students. Who put in so much effort and deserved twice the pay they received.