Corporate role at a University vs Civil Service

[Internationalpony]

Hi all,

I’d love to hear your experiences of what it’s like to work at a University and even more so if you have experience of both universities and the civil service!

I’m in my thirties and I’ve been a Civil Servant for most of my career but have done a couple of secondments, one to the third sector and one to the UN. I’m in a fairly senior (SCS1 role).

I found working at the UN and third sector roles very slow paced by comparison and I know the UK Civil Service isn’t exactly a tech start up but honestly the other organisations felt much more old school by comparison! I’m in one of the smaller policy Departments which has a great culture, young workforce, high performing, collaborative and it’s fairly easy to get things done.

I’ve been in my current role for a couple of years now and I’ve recently been offered a role at a Russell Group University. The role is similar to my current role but the scope of the role / size of the portfolio is smaller although I’d have the same size team and I’d have a PA so I think the workload would potentially be lighter! The title however sounds much grander and the pay is 40k more than I’m currently earning.

It’s very tempting but I thrive on working in a fast paced political environment and I’m worried I’ll find it slow paced and old fashioned like my secondments but in reality I have no idea what university working life is like and I could be completely wrong! I’d love to hear from people who have insight into what it’s really like.

Thanks for reading!

In my experience, everything is urgent and important, which means that nothing ultimately is. Prioritisation has not been a strong point. It sounds impossible, but it is concurrently fast paced and glacial at the same time, which can really mess with you.

😂😂 the war zone comment! Thanks for sharing - the academic staff at universities are some of the most brilliant minds but I do worry that won’t be the case on the professional services side! Thanks for your insights.

I don't know anything about either culture, but just wanted to say £40k per annum is a huge difference. If you put it all in a pension you could retire a year early- if not more - for each year you worked there.

I know work fulfilment is important, but I often think as women we sometimes think taking the money into consideration is a bit grubby, but you really should factor it in.

I agree with this, and it is one of the challenges with dealing with academics (and staff in academic departments generally). You might have the endorsement of the COO to roll out a certain programme, but you will be asking staff who get important requests several times a week to prioritise this over all the other ones.

Universities have taken on so many different missions in recent decades - or at least these have become more prominent. Alongside teaching and research, we do social justice (widening participation, graduate employability) regional engagement, tech transfer/knowledge transfer, immigration controls, export controls, decarbonisation etc. We tend to be a big local employer and have responsibilities to the local community.

Again, this is part of what makes universities so fascinating to work in, but it can also lead to the sort of frustrations that some PP have expressed, as it's possible for the leadership to get pulled along with the latest issue to hit the headlines, while on the ground, people are slow to move because they don't know whether the issue will "stick" and also it can be seen as a distraction from teaching and research.

If Grade 9 at a Uni is £40k more then I don't think I could say no to the money. Is that the bottom of grade 9 where they'll want to start you?

But. I've worked in two universities and found my last spell in particular, at grade 8, soul destroying. Trying to motivate a team that all recognise they'll never be paid as much elsewhere to effect real change was close to impossible. Everyone has been there for fifteen years plus and doesn't see the point in changing. They were even suspicious of a vlookup.😭 I went to a big consultantancy subsequently and feel like I'm finally sat with the grownups.

Should say that's professional services. It may well be different elsewhere.

I would liken it to a tsunami. Nothing happens for a very long time and then suddenly it is urgent and huge projects must be completed in a ridiculously short time.

I've worked in universities for 27 years and, being honest, it has mainly been ok because I have an area of specialism which means I have a lot of control over what I do. If I didn't then the sheer pettiness and obstructionism that pervades the sector would finish me.

Just read that you're managed services. 😬

I am an academic but have great respect for professional services staff. leskovac and dog days have made some great points.
You are probably already aware of this but the university sector is not doing well at the moment. Massive reconfiguration is everywhere, at all levels. So your job may not necessarily stay the same. Workloads are already incredibly high - I appreciate you’ve already worked in some very high profile roles, but universities really really expect you to work for your money and that is likely to be the organisational culture. Everyone around you will be overloaded which is stressful when you are trying to get things done. Russell group unis have so far been somewhat protected from these changes but the word is they are next in line to struggle.

I agree, and my more recent experience is that the tsunamis are relentless. You barely get a chance to gulp air and the idea of the ebb and flow of the academic year to mitigate for this is slowing being eroded as courses start all through the year.

It’s professional services - is that the same thing?

I've worked for University and currently work in the CS. IMO there are a lot of similarities. A lot of bureaucracy and resistance to change, a lot of backwards processes and I agree with a PP who said that everything is urgent, which means nothing is. In my University there was a particular issue with academic staff and their treatment of professional services staff, basically we were lesser beings, which made effective collaboration extremely difficult. Progression is also very limited and so many staff have been in the same role for many years so there was nowhere to move to. I think for £40k, you'd be mad not to give it a go, but the sector is definitely not without it's issues, and I personally wouldn't go back to it.

@Berga not just relentless, they are usually the same ones coming round again and again. For example - I have now seen at least 5 major projects relating to feedback roll round, be implemented hastily, fail, and then about 4 years later come round again.

The lack of promotion for professional services staff does cause issues as people (being honest mainly women) stay while their children are young and they need flexibility but then they leave for better jobs where their skills are respected when their children get older. So the same projects keep being suggested again and again because there's limited institutional memory.

A grade 9 means different things at different universities. The one thing that is constant is the 52 point pay spine. If you know what pay points your potential job fits onto then you’ll find it easier to compare between institutions.

I would do it to get experience (and the money) and move within 3 years. I mean I wouldn’t, I’m a lifer, but that’s what the people at the top do. Which is why there’s lots of talk but little useful action.

Professional Services can mean everyone who is not an academic. In principle, this could be people delivering students/academic administration on the ground in academic departments or in the central university, technical staff who can be highly specialised, corporate governance, marcomms, IT, Finance, HR, Research/Impact Services, Tech Transfer (many universities have an office which supports the formation of spin-outs and will help find venture capital etc), Estates (including capital project managers, engineers, grounds staff, security, cleaning), Conferences (like running a small chain of business hotels), the Arts Centre, Sports Centre.....

In practice it's like stereotype theory - everyone recognises a robin as a bird, but people may or may not think of an ostrich or a penguin quite as readily ;-)

Given the amount you have shared about your professional background, the level of the post, the readership of this forum and how well networked people at RG universities are with one another, how confident are you that this thread is anonymous?

Are you suggesting one of the three people on the interview panel who saw my CV are now trolling me on mumsnet? 😂😂😂

I’m worried I’ll find it slow paced and old fashioned like my secondments but in reality I have no idea what university working life is like and I could be completely wrong! I’d love to hear from people who have insight into what it’s really like.

I'm a relatively highly paid (for an academic) & fast-moving academic and I never get near the sniff of a PA unless I earn the money to pay someone by bringing in a grant, so there is obviously still some fat to be trimmed ...

You don't seem particularly interested in the two main activities of a university: teaching and research. I think that even in a professional services role, it is essential that anyone working in a university is committed to these two core activities, and that they can show, every day, that they have been working towards delivering those core things.

It's pretty easy to tell when a PS colleague doesn't care about education, students, or knowledge (research). It makes a difference to the quality of their work. Particularly when they say things that show they've never been in front of a group of undergrads or done research in their lives.

Universities might seem "slow" because we are looking after the education of undergrads over several years, and we are doing research which can take a long time. There are reasons for the way we do things, and if you're not willing to try to see that, universities don't need your approach.

So maybe not for you.

And your later responses to people trying to give you advice make me think you really would not fit in in a university.

You have to really believe in the value of scholarship and research, and take a partnership approach with the academic community in order to achieve goals, which ultimately will be (or should be) driven by academic priorities.

EVERYTHING @Leskovac says, but especially this. A lot of people don't understand that universities may feel "slow" but that our core activity (research) takes time, and does move slowly sometimes.

It helps if the PS staff at least try to understand this, and appreciate that most (if not all?) academics are driven by vocation to do our research & teaching - on crappy salaries & conditions and very bad work/life balance. It's essential that PS staff recognise this. The good ones do, and we are pussycats with them, we love working with them. But the ones who choose not to recognise this - well, they make my already complex work more difficult and I basically despise them.

A lot of PS staff are motivated at least partly by vocation as well, and we love working with academics who want to work with us 😍

😂😂 the war zone comment! Thanks for sharing - the academic staff at universities are some of the most brilliant minds but I do worry that won’t be the case on the professional services side! Thanks for your insights.

This is probably the comment which might give me most pause for thought. As a PP said, it’s not command and control and you would need to bring a wide diversity of staff with you.

When academics have never worked anywhere except academia, that really shows to the PS staff too. We deserve to be respected as professionals in our own right, and that doesn't require us to have conducted research or taught UGs. It's essential academics also recognise this, because you may be an expert in your field, but you're not an expert in, say, coordinating student accommodation, event planning graduation, dealing with a major security incident or procuring a new cybersecure customer service system to deal with student enquiries, unless those happen to be your academic areas. Our salaries are also crappy and we also work long hours. Nice to know we are despised for not always kowtowing to academics.

A lot of PS staff are motivated at least partly by vocation as well, and we love working with academics who want to work with us

Yes, I've had some wonderful working relationships with PS staff - a colleague almost literally held my hand through a major huge grant application - they were part of the success & I'll never not give the credit. But there are also the types who don't actually seem to either understand or like undergraduates or academics ... And the ones who set up policies, systems and admin requirements related to teaching, having obviously never been in frnt of a group of undergrads ...

Congratulations on the grant!

@Berga I do not despise PS colleagues unless they try to gainsay my expertise or require me to fit into their systems, when those systems are not fit for purpose - because the people setting up those systems don't care to take the time to consult academics widely and listen (I'm a bit sensitive: I've been dealing all day with the knock-on effects of a disaster of a VLE roll out , in which the tech limitations look like requiring me to change the way I teach & assess - not good enough, frankly).

Most PS colleagues who work alongside teaching & research staff get this; they too are committed to the students and their education (Department adminstrators are usually absolutely amazing at knowing all the students & their issues), and supporting academics to do our work.

Sadly, it tends to be senior management who don't, and who set up policies which demonstrate just how far they are from the coalface of teaching & research, sadly.

I'm wondering now if we work at the same institution because I have also just been involved in a nightmare VLE rollout and if it's the same one, you're completely right on all points and in PS we also blame the senior management 😂