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?

I'm on grade 8. I'm at the end of my career but professors pay is higher. We also have defined benefit pensions.

Also there are other incentives in work apart from financial.

I think my dad had the last of the employer matched pensions... hence why he has a good very high pension now!

Yep, a friend of mine is a professor and has more than 20 years of experience and is paid so little it’s ridiculous. With their partner they could only just get a mortgage on a one bed flat (expensive city but it’s where the uni that leads in his research is). They live fairly hand to mouth despite being brilliant, hard working, and having more than one phd.

We weren’t training up trades people before Blair got in and apprenticeships were rare. Harry Enfield’s “Loadsamoney” character - embodying the low skill of many tradesmen at the time along with their high take home pay (often avoiding tax) and don’t care attitude - was from the middle of the Thatcher era.

There’s lots of decent criticism to be had of the push for 50% of young people getting degrees, but the lack of trades people can’t really be laid at its feet.

HNRTT but I've seen university Chief Executives on eye watering remuneration eviscerate employment terms and conditions for front academics over a long time. Most UK ujiversities seem to use exploitative short term contracts and salaries that do not easily allow the academics to live close to their university, secure mortgages and so on. Academics have been plagued by short term contracts for much longer than the recent inflation that has reduced the value of the fees cap in real terms. It appears the system is run primarily for the benefit of senior administrators.

That said, academia like art, theatre, music and suchlike in the UK is probably affected by the salary discount that applies to jobs for which many people have a passion

Harry Enfield’s “Loadsamoney” character - embodying the low skill of many tradesmen at the time along with their high take home pay

Plasterers are not "low skill".

I assume this is in the UK as my ds is postdoc in Ireland and is making twice as much as me in teaching, and I am at the end of my career.

We also have defined benefit pensions.

Only those of us who've been in the game for a long time. University pensions have been moving towards defined-contribution for a while now. A proportion of mine is defined-benefit and it appears to be worth almost nothing.

I've family members in academia. They work their arse's off, don't even take their leave. Would never choose to be an academic, though I work in HE! It's a job that you do for love, not money.

Blimey. I thought it was a high paid profession.

I am now wondering where the £9k of uni fees we are paying for 2 kids is going given they have very little contact time!

Slightly more yes, but about the same amount of workload as my DH and he gets paid pennies to work in secondary…

No idea. If you find out, do let me know.

Just remember, Tolkien built Middle Earth and wrote the Lord of the Rings trilogy whilst working as a senior lecturer…

If that shocks you, check out the pay for teachers and learning support. I am a former teacher with a degree and a PGCE and I currently work in learning support with children with some pretty complex needs ( ASD, ADHD, Tourette"s, severe attachment issues or MY issues) and I could make more per hour on till at Lidl.

Apparently he was paying £1500 a month to live in a house share with no lounge too.

My previous university made us save annual leave for the Christmas closure. I've never had paid time of at Easter and this the third university I've worked at.

So glad someone wrote this! It's a (nasty) joke isn't it? I earned more in my 20s in a previous career where I was quite junior (now in 50s). I compared salary to US colleagues the other day of same rank and they were on £40-60k more. Shocked.

It's actually high pay proportional to number of hours worked. Most places don't have as much generous annual leave, and while school and sixth form teachers work at least 9-3pm and have tons of marking and tons to do over the holidays, lecturers don't. Many of the lectures are rehashed from other talks or what they've lectured on in previous years. A lot of their work like marking is handed off to PhD students to do.

Many of the lecturers I had also insisted that their very expensive books were core parts of the modules they taught, so they made at least £150 per student per semester from that.

I did an arts degree and the lecturers refused to work in certain buildings that they didn't like and refused to work outside of 10am to 4pm so they had a lot of say.

🤣 Christ I wish I didn't have much marking.

The visible teaching bits of an academic's job is only a tiny part of it.

It's actually high pay proportional to number of hours worked.

What hours do you think we work?

Most places don't have as much generous annual leave,

How much annual leave do you think we get?

and while school and sixth form teachers work at least 9-3pm and have tons of marking and tons to do over the holidays, lecturers don't.

Yes we do!!! We have lots of marking, second marking, moderation and external examining. How many 80,000 word PhDs do teachers mark and examine?

Many of the lectures are rehashed from other talks or what they've lectured on in previous years. A lot of their work like marking is handed off to PhD students to do.

Not true.

Many of the lecturers I had also insisted that their very expensive books were core parts of the modules they taught, so they made at least £150 per student per semester from that.

Again, this isn't the case at all significant number of universities. Not that many academics have written books. We tend to write articles which we sometimes have to pay to be published!!!

It's quite depressing to see some Secondary vs. Higher Ed discussion here - can't we just agree that Education as a sector is underfunded and underpaid, overly bureaucratic and under intense political and media (and parental) pressure, leading to a deterioration of work conditions?

That was in the 1930s-50s. Over 70 years ago. I think things are different now.

Academic salaries are low but the freedom is incredible and the work is fun. I wouldn’t expect a senior lecturer to only be band 7 but some unis inflate job titles. In my mind it’s approx 30-40k postdoc, 40-55k lecturer, 55-65 senior lecturer, 65-100k+ professor. Most people don’t get to professor. I think the worst thing about it is the gaslighting of implying everyone should progress to prof, while also there are obviously not enough positions for everyone to do that. So then complaints about conditions lower down are basically met with suggestions to work harder, be better, get promoted. And if you don’t make it to the top you’re just a bit shit.

I work in a university. Although the pay, holiday and pension etc aren’t bad, there are certainly no bonuses and few perks.
Also, no we do not get the whole summer off! We work all year round like anyone else - it’s only teaching that stops during the student vacations. Research, admin, teaching support and preparation, looking after buildings etc never stops.