Major universities facing weeks-long strikes as job cuts deepen

Union branches plan walkouts across UK amid increased tensions with senior managers

Published on
October 30, 2025
Last updated
October 30, 2025
Juliette Rowsell
Sign attached to a tree near an official picket line of the University and College Union
Source: iStock/Ceri Breeze
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UK university job cuts and industrial issues

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Reader's comments (5)

#1 Submitted by bursar@... on October 31, 2025 - 12:36pm
Going to cost Us a lot of money in compensation to Ss for breach of contract and failure to comply with CRA15! Cost fully or perhaps only partly recovered from the docking of strikers’ pay?,
#2 Submitted by i.... on October 31, 2025 - 1:22pm
Indeed. The difference has been very noticable. Last time we went on strike the university refused to hold any negotiations aside from the 2 mandated by our collective bargining agreement. This time, they have actively asked for more negotiations, and have even put forward an offer before strikes have even started. An unacceptable offer to be sure, but an offer non-the-less. Our negotiators tell us that this time it feels like management is genuinely trying to find a solution, rather than just going through the motions, as in the past. This would have been unthinkable before the changes to the OfS rules.
#3 Submitted by k.s.... on November 2, 2025 - 12:52pm
Well the problem with the Universities is partly internal and to do with governance, second and third rate bureaucrats and fourth rate managers controlling the budgets and telling the academics that bring in the money from research and teaching what to do. The Law firms have it correct, the partners bring in the money and employ bureaucrats and managers as and when required at much lower cost, with the lawyers firmly in control. The Lawyers therefore get well paid and control the bureaucrats and managers. In academia it is the other way around, and the revenue producers which are the academics are told what to do by the admin and largely useless senior management teams that overpay themselves while underpaying the academics.
#4 Submitted by ... on November 5, 2025 - 5:24pm
I fully agree but until there is some link between senior managerial and admin pay and funding (the ability to implement fee increases due to inflation for example) this is not going to change. Those who regulate pay for others are the ones that determine their own pay within their own institutions by Remuneration Committees in effect giving themselves increases and awards that have little realtion to the overall fiunancial health opf the instoitution or theor own performance as measured by key indicators (and often entirely count to it). These senior figures of whom there are too many simply this extract the welth created by others from the institution transferring it to theor own estates, via pay, pensions and conditions.
#5 Submitted by ... on November 5, 2025 - 5:26pm
Well, it depends on how effective the strikes are. They are often patchy and piecemeal. And of course there may very well be an imoact on NSS and thus TEF down the line that may impact further on recruitment for institutitions that are frequent strikers.

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