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?

😂 no, we do not get bonuses. We do get paid time off at Christmas and Easter though and a lot of work-life flexibility.

That said, lecturing is not just teaching. Actually, we spend fairly little time teaching. A lot of it is pastoral care with students, admin work, chairing committees, writing for publication, attending conferences (and organising them), supervising student dissertations and PhD research, and running research grants, including managing huge budgets. I don’t know anyone in academia who works 9-5. Everyone works evenings, weekends, my line manager fills her time when she is away on holiday with her family with meetings.

Honestly, a PhD and 20 years in academia and I’m leaving. Lots of colleagues up and left long ago and I never thought I would. But a life changing illness and I decided that I wanted more out of life than to be trapped on this treadmill.

It might vary by discipline, but when I was a student at uni (sciences) most of the lecturers spent their time doing research and only did a few hours a week of actual teaching. They pay's not that bad if you get to spend most of your time studying a subject you're really interested in, almost like being paid to pursue a hobby.

Agreed! I'm a Grade 9 Professional Services person. I have an MA(Hons) - Scottish UG degree from an Ancient Uni; an MSc; and a PhD. I fell into Academic Administration (as many of us do), liked it, and am really bloody good at it. I now take home only about £120 more than I did when first appointed to Grade 9, about 10 years ago. There's no bonuses for us, unless you get your £500 'excellent performance' award, which takes forever to apply for/be awarded. Oh, and it's also taxed!

The money in Universities isn't in academic or regular professional services roles; it's in the Senior Management, where, for example, my Uni's Principal earns just over £400k a year, and gets a free house to stay in.

TV shows are partly to blame..Professors are always portrayed living in lovely detached Georgian or Victorian houses. In similar vein, criminal barristers are often portrayed living in swanky apartments overlooking the Thames!

Wasn’t the Vice - chancellor of Bath Uni on over £600000 ?

We do get paid time off at Christmas and Easter though and a lot of work-life flexibility.

We don't get any additional time off at Easter....we did during COVID as a gesture of goodwill but that was a one off!

The Christmas closure is definitely a real bonus though. I feel it's the only time I switch off as the emails go quiet!

can I ask why we expect the salaries to be higher?

I would expect them to be exactly the same as a primary / secondary school teachers.

It seems low.
How many hours are required per week and how much holiday days though? It would be disingenuous to compare a yearly salary to
other fields if these two factors are different.

almost like being paid to pursue a hobby.

It's really not. Undergrads don't see the range & complexity of what academics do.

I was aware of this as I've wanted to be a lecturer in my field, but I simply can't afford the massive drop in salary.

I was shocked that I would need to top up my degree with another 1-3 years, even with 25 year industry experience. So I've had to park the idea.

I do still have alerts set for any jobs, and still think about it.

And mine! DH and his colleagues are scruffy buggers (the men anyway, the women are smarter).

Do they get huge bonuses or something?

No.

DH one currently - we do alright similar lifestyle to our working class parents/upbringing - DH likes his job - teaching and research has some flexibility.

Where I think sector is causing problems is need to move around so much - and being so late DH and peers were early to mid 30 before got permeant contract - as that age spousal careers and kids constant moves are unstainable. It fact think it's got worse - many first permanent contracts can require huge amount of funding to be brought in for research - so many take them knowing they won't hot them and then move on to actual permeant job.

Don't forget the unpaid 'extra' stuff they are expected to do for the esteem. reviewing papers and grant applications, external examiner roles (usually just a token amount). Also, no payment for publications.

Yes, it's not amazing pay. But it's also massively massively oversubscribed in most disciplines. Far more people want to do the job than there are positions. So it's unlikely the pay will improve. The only disciplines where the pay begins to be competitive is where there are competing industry research positions, like life sciences and mathematics, and then only in the top flight.

Most people who might have done things like social science research careers in academia get creamed off into think tanks and policy nowadays.

If only more students and parents knew this, and the press didn't constantly (and knowingly) go on about Uni staff being disconnected elites. These incorrect assumptions about pay and privilege do so much damage and really sour the student experience.

My understanding is that they make more money consulting on the side in their area of expertise. My brother was an academic in engineering. I think it’s also a labour of love as academics are so passionate about their jobs that you don’t need to pay them very well to attract them to the role! Whereas, in the finance sector, for example, you have to pay massive salaries to attracts the smart ones.

Contracts tend to be 37.5 hours/ week but in practice overwork is assumed and never compensated (including open day attendance at weekend for instance). Annual leave is 5-7 weeks but is often eaten away by work and you can only take it at certain times (outside term time, graduation day etc.). So, no, academics do not get super long summer holidays, as many assume.

No bonuses and pay rises consistently below inflation. Also a big culture of working much more than your contracted hours (at least in the sciences). Generous holidays but most people don’t take all of them or continue to work while on annual leave. Very few make extra money through consultancy.

It probably does vary by discipline, but research is really not about faffing around with your "hobby" - we are under pressure to bring in external research funding, which is supposed to "buy out" our teaching load, but often it doesn't and we end up doing both. And as part of the research you will be writing grant proposals (which in most areas have low probability of funding, and are very time consuming), managing staff and budgets, writing reports and papers and keeping to strict funder deadlines. And in addition we often have huge amounts of internal admin.

We get Good Friday and then the whole following week off, I've come to really value it as the kids are off school and so are both of us (both academics at the same uni). Everyone off, better weather and none of the hassle of Christmas, it's an actual break/

I was a senior lecturer for 3 years, worked standard full time hours so taught probably 30 hours a week most days, often I taught from 9:30 til 16:30 with half an hour for lunch. Was quieter over summer but we would plan and research then.
I lectured on healthcare courses which are longer and more intense than most regular undergrad degrees.
When went back to my NHS job I was paid 8k a year more and it’s actually less stressful.

Depends on the field. Not much call for consulting in most of the humanities. Or a lot of the sciences, come to that - how many consultant paleontologists do you know?

My understanding is that they make more money consulting on the side in their area of expertise.

Not all subjects work like this. Most of us wouldn't even have time to do this anyway! I already work 50 hours a week most weeks
I get around £500 a year to be an external examiner at another university but that's it!

You are remunerated to 37.5 (or thereabouts) hours a week. In reality, I'd have thought 50-60 hours per week is the norm. About 40 days annual leave - of which we have to take 7 for Christmas/New Year closure. It's finding time to actually take them, as there's whole swathes of the year it's not possible.

Someone else said they expected pay and conditions to be like a schoolteacher; University academics have considerably higher qualifications. They will have at least a first UG degree, and usually a Masters, and PhD. They will mostly also have to do a PGCE in their first 3 years, so they also have a teaching qualification (the same level as school teachers.) That's about 8-10 years of studying. I'm not knocking schoolteachers, but my academic colleagues are considerably higher qualified, and should be rewarded as such.

That sounds lovely!