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?

Oh come on! Getting paid to think about what you are interested in all day.

Also, students paying £150 for books doesn't mean the author gets £150!

If only....!!

Make money! Write a book!
Royalties 😡 For a textbook that may sell for £25-£30 the author will probably receive £1.50/copy and that's if it's a bestseller. For my subject, which takes on about 5,000 students a year across the country, the book would have to make it onto the reading list of every course and be recommended as the essential book everyone in the country must buy for me to make about £7500. University libraries used to buy lots of paper copies but now buy a couple with an online digital subscription. You get paid a lot less for digitally accessed books. Might make another few hundred off that. When you think that most people have to write in their own time, because most of us get little or no workload relief for writing, the financial return is nowhere near minimum wage.

Oh mate. Infinite facepalm.
Unless you’re joking, which I really hope you are.

I think it sounds like a nice job. And therefore that's reasonable pay compared to maybe a primary school teacher and all the full on requirements, duties, etc and hours they put in. i bet they can top up their pay with other things too.

I am surprised to learn this as Union guidance does not allow this. 30 hours a week is way more than the Union guidance of 18 hours maximum a week.

"Do they get huge bonuses or something?"

We wish! I can just hear DH's (senior lecturer, been a Uni lecturer for 28 years) snorts now. 😅 He's on around £50k net, so not bad, but not rolling in it either. There's people much worse off. 🤷‍♀️

I think it sounds like a nice job.

It is a nice job, just very, very stressful at times.

And therefore that's reasonable pay compared to maybe a primary school teacher and all the full on requirements, duties, etc and hours they put in.

I really wish people stop comparing the job to that of a school teacher. They are VERY different jobs with different expectations and responsibilities.

i bet they can top up their pay with other things too.

Not really, no.

University academics have full on requirements, admin duties and do long hours too.
It isn’t just a teaching job in a school for grown ups. Almost all lecturers do research, and are under pressure to meet targets for publication of research papers. They spend a lot of time and effort chasing research grants. They have to produce lots of reports. They are expected to contribute to the general running of their department, e.g. by attending meetings and participating in staff and student recruitment. They don’t just rock up to a lecture theatre, talk at undergraduate students and go away again. The teaching is usually only a small part of the week.

There’s very little awareness that a lot of people’s jobs aren’t just what you see on the surface or what you might imagine them to be. This seems to be a good example.

And publishers are really not generous. Academics publish in journals, and peer-review for journals, and don't get paid for any of this.

Saying that, I know of some scientists who have received enormous annual honoraria for editing journals in the past, but this is getting much rarer now.

Yeah, you're unreasonable to think academics are highly paid.

Why are you comparing a Senior Lecturer in a University to a Primary school teacher? The are both under the umbrella of education, but the roles are entirely different.

Yes agree with this. We should all be in this together and it's a shame we sometimes find each other pitted against each other.

My eyes just rolled all the way back.

Yes, an academic career is a choice. Yes, there is a small and ever decreasing portion of time to think about your driving intellectual passion. Often after formal working hours, but then every academic I know works evenings and weekends routinely.

It is deeply depressing to read that so many think that authors pocket (even a good portion of) the purchase price of their books; that no one who hasn’t done it has an inkling of how time consuming the requirement to chase funding is; that PPs may not realise the scale of the marking and examining tasks at a large university, etc.

I don’t think I know anyone who has felt able to take their full holiday allowance in many years. BTW we are also forced to use 2 weeks of it in Dec-Jan so not all that much is left for summer. Which is moot because of the time crunch.

I used to work in engineering where mistakes made by engineers put peoples life’s at risk. You could say the same for lots of medical professions. I used to sometimes think I might like to go in to lecturing to reduce that weight off my mind even though it pays less. I guess maybe that’s one reason why it pays less

The big salaries are in what they laughably call management.

Not all well-paid careers come with life and death decisions. I can honestly say no one is going to get hurt if I mess up at work and I'm extremely well-paid. Lecturing at university was much more of a headache as apart from being paid peanuts for teaching, marking, drafting papers, I also had to deal with students' pastoral issues which was the worst part of the job.

@yeaitsmeagain

You forgot to mention the taxpayer-funded unicorns we ride to work, and the masseurs who soothe our tender limbs as we recline on our divans in the senior common room and nibble on free canapés.

I'm sure there's more stuff you can make up, though. Try to make it a bit more imaginative than the last lot.

Eh? Lecturers have tons of marking - who do you think marks the essays, coursework & exams? Who do you think looks at student appeals, extension requests, organises fieldtrips, student exchanges, moderates exams, external examinations, does the PhD examination & vivas...secondary school teachers put up with a lot but they don't have to read and mark an entire PhD!

Yes it is terrible and not the same across the pond. My DH is an academic but supplements his income as he is a medic as well. It is a career not for the money motivated.

9k fees don't cover the cost of running an UG degree. Hence the financial difficulties faced by many universities.

Universities are huge organisations and there are so many aspects to ensure a degree runs smoothly, that students are adequately supported and that they have a positive experience. All of that costs money! Lots of money!

Has the OP said what the university is? My DD is a mere Research Fellow with no PhD, but is at a top research institution in her field. It's one whose work featured a lot during the Covid pandemic. She's on around 44k as far as I know. So yes, that ad posted by the OP seems low. But maybe it's not a 'top' institution.
Coincidentally DS worked briefly in academic recruitment and said some universities are on their knees financially - his fairly low ranking Cambridge college was way richer than many of the universities he was attempting to recruit for. So there may be no money in OPs example.
DD says she's not going to bother doing a PhD though because the gears of academia grind so slowly, and she will eventually move on to government or NGO or even consutancy work where she will earn more. However, the name of her employer on her CV will attract interest.

A colleague of mine earned £1.18 of royalties last year from her very well-regarded book.

Edited collections reward you with a free copy of the book and that’s it.

Even substantial publishers now often require some kind of funding from you/the university, whether for advertising or for indexing or whatever.