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?

Have you factored in the meaty pension contributions they get though? Presumably you have to set money aside for pensions out of your salary?

And what about illness etc? Presumably you have to set money aside or have decent insurance for any serious illness too?

For instance - I am not a lecturer but am in public sector and earn approx £60k a year but on top of that my employer pays an additional £20k in pension contributions. And twice during the last decade I have been ill for 2-3 months and each time was paid full pay for the whole time. Plus I get around 7 weeks a year paid leave and very decent job security.

I.e. my salary is just part of the overall "package"

I would want to be confident I would earn north of £120k/year to feel I had an equivalent package if I was self employed

But unless you are trotting out the same old tired material year in year out then for every lecture you give there is between 1 to 12 hours prep, depending on how new the material is. Even if you only glance over it, you usually have to travel to another uni (unpaid hours), arrive early to meet and greet (unpaid) and get collared by students and staff afterwards (unpaid) then travel home. That is at least four hours for £80 which is often paid about six months later, after you have chased the guest institution several times (unpaid admin hours) to pay your invoice. I never do a guest lecture for less than £150 and I know that is shit pay for the hours involved.

Also, I am interested in the people who mention royalties form books. Academic publications famously sell about 4 copies. Unless they have also written a bestselling popular version of their research royalties are a myth or an assumption.

Academic jobs are hard to get because lots of people want them. This oversupply keeps salaries low.

It's the same in most arty fields where lots of people want to work (acting for example is usually badly paid unless you're a big movie star).

Most well paid jobs are so fucking boring that nobody would do them if they weren't well paid (finance, law etc)

In academia you have to make do with being paid with 'prestige'

"Meaty pensions" Ha ha ha ha. I know lecturers who have worked for one of the top unis, teaching at post grad level for over 15 years and very highly regarded in their field. No pension at all. When they questioned why they were on contracts that didn't offer pensions, they were fired.

My dad was a SL in the days when excellent pensions came with the job. He retired at 55. The people I know doing an equivalent job to his are on peanuts pay and short term year by year contracts.

Why are you pretending we can’t google this info up. All unis offer pensions as staff benefits to permanent staff and often on top of USS.

Two friends of mine are Oxford professors. One lives in a small damp rented terrace 40 mins walk from her college and the other lives miles out of town.

Only because they were taken to court a year ago for Uberization of contracts. Until then loads of staff were on casual contracts, zero hours contracts and had no pension. You can 'google this info up' all you like but that doesn't make your awareness of the facts more accurate than that of those who work in academia.

I have worked at my institution for five years. I have been asked if I'd like to join the pension scheme this year. Wasn't on offer until it was made illegal not to offer it. Friends who have worked for the same uni for twenty years, also part time, had no pension offer until this year, It won't be back-dated for the last twenty years.

'Meaty pension' fantasies and google fact checks won;t make me any richer when I retire.

We have a retired friend who bought a small terraced house on Cowley Road in the late seventies as a research fellow. He got a permanent post in a Russell Group university, and bought an apartment there while renting place in Oxford. He took early retirement.
He's single...he lives on his pension and can put the excess into savings. Having sold the apartment and returned to Oxford.
It does seem really unfair.

I was comparing the salaried jobs op described in her opening post Vs the headline income of a self employed person

I appreciate there are huge issues with insecure contracts at universities but equally op was comparing apples with pears

A friend of mine who is an Oxford professor lives in a beautiful house in central Oxford provided by their college, which is worth probably several million...

You're shocked that's a "low" salary when it's 20% to 60% higher than the general median wage for adults in full time employment. A senior lecturer is relatively junior in the academic hierarchy - lecturing students isn't very prestigious and there are a lot of rungs to climb up.

When the salary range you consider "low" crosses the threshold into higher rate tax payer levels you may need a reality check on how low some families' income really is.

Senior lecturer isn't junior. Not when you consider that most will have done several years of postdoc before even getting to lecturer level. Not to mention the PhD.

Most people will late 30s by the time they get to SL level. Hardly the equivalent of the 21 year old office junior.

Where will they live when they retire?

That's not a low salary to most people as its well above the average household income.

I knew senior lawyers on less than that in the public sector.

I work in HE. I'm lucky to have a steady, well paid (in my eyes, clearly not in PPs') and flexible job. My workload is manageable, I get a lot of holidays, I have autonomy in how I work, I'm interested in my subject area so I generally enjoy going to work . This is not everyone's case. Just in my department, you'll find a whole range from established professors on very good pay and with a good pension scheme; others will be mid rank with a good salary and prospects for progression; others will be on fixed term fractional contracts or even hourly paid, with no clue as to whether they'll be offered more hours next year. As you move up the ranks, there'll be more variety to what you do I'd say.

Often people's situations 'll depend on when people joined academia. The sector is currently extremely precarious, and has been for a number of years.

There is also an issue with workload. I am one of the lucky ones but this is not the norm.

I have worked at my institution for five years. I have been asked if I'd like to join the pension scheme this year. Wasn't on offer until it was made illegal not to offer it. Friends who have worked for the same uni for twenty years, also part time, had no pension offer until this year, It won't be back-dated for the last twenty years.

This is not true. Universities are legally obliged to automatically enrol all academic staff on either the TPS scheme (post 92 universities. the best pension in the developed world) or USS (pre-92 unis).

academia is like the arts, people go into it because of passion for their subject. If they don’t like the pay / job uncertainty / work hours, move along because there’s somebody else waiting behind them who wants the job.

This point is key - there is huge demand for jobs at university. As many posters have pointed out above, advertisements for even quite precarious contracts are inundated from well-qualified applicants. Therefore, there's no incentive for universities to raise the salaries. Why should they, if they can get good staff for the cheaper price.

Compare this to schools - in my school, most job advertisements get zero applications from anyone remotely suitable for the job. We have supply teachers covering a range of subjects because we can't hire staff, and at times we can't even find supply teachers.

That doesn’t seem right? It’s not usual anyway.

Average postdoctoral salary in Ireland is €42000. An end of career teacher would be making more than that and will also have a ‘gold-plated’ pension that won’t apply to postdocs.

Absolutely, I did mention he does more hours than is paid for due to meeting with lecturers, students etc
My husband is one of those really annoying people who can produce an amazing lecture of the top of his head without doing any prep. He might spend half an hour doing some PowerPoint slides as that's expected, but he knows his subject so well that he can just talk without prep, whereas it takes me a say at least to prepare on hours lecture on the few times I have done it

HNRTT but another dimension to the remuneration discussion and those comparing with schcool-age teaching is the time, cost and opportunity cost to becoming eligible for the academic salaries. It is complicated as there can be some earning for doc and post docs from engagement in those role but it might be worth totting up the fees for post graduate study and the opportunity costs from obviated salaries then compare to those roles that involve going straight into earning after a bachelor's or after what was aa one year PGCE in the UK? In some subjects, workers cana have a contribution at post-doc, in other like maths, it appears to take several years post-doc before someone can be in a meaningful position to make a contribution, though I know I'm conflating the duration of speciaalism and study with being able to meaningfully earn. Compare that with the ability of a quant to earn in the City or for big tech after their PhD or even masters.

Having seen only a few posts, I'm reminded of threads concerning pay rises for medical doctors and nurses where many posters minimise the responsibilities and personal legal accountabilities and time taken studying to earn and bring an attitude of 'well I've heard they earn more than me or my DP so they don't deserve any more'.

So if you have a vocation for say, motor mechanics, you should be paid less?

"Passion for your subject" isn't an argument for not paying people what they're worth. At some point, universities aren't going to be able to train all the professionals we need in the global knowledge economy.

Move abroad. Academics in Zurich are paid upwards of £300,000 a year.

then you weren’t the perm people OP was talking about were you? If you want to go into academia on contracts and not even bother researching your benefits then should you be teaching young people? Honestly some of you are batshit crazy.

In any case DB is a Senior Lecturer in a highly sought after STEM field and if you combine all his sources of academic income is easily on a package worth £150k a year. He is by far not the only one.