Statistical First Release 143

HESA SFR 143

Staff at Higher Education Institutions in the United Kingdom 2008/09

This is the first release of data from the 2008/09 HESA staff record.

Key points - all staff

On 1 December 2008 there were 382,760 staff employed in the HE sector, of whom 179,040 (46.8%) were academic professionals.

252,520 staff were employed on full-time contracts and 130,240 on part-time contracts. 46.5% of full-time staff and 67.3% of part-time staff were female.

In addition, a further 194,125 atypical staff*, were employed by HEIs over the academic year.

Key points - academic staff

Of 179,040 academic staff (excluding atypicals) employed on 1 December 2008 77,745 (43.4%) were female.

17,535 academic staff were employed as Professors, of whom 3,270 (18.7%) were female.

115,945 (64.8%) of academic staff were employed on open-ended or permanent contracts and 35.2% were employed on fixed term contracts.

Tables

Table 1 shows the number of staff employed at UK HEIs in 2008/09 by activity, mode of employment and gender.

Table 2 gives a summary of academic staff (excluding atypical staff) employed by HE institutions on 1 December 2008.

Detailed analysis of the HESA Staff Record will be available in the reference volume Resources of Higher Education Institutions 2008/09 due out in May 2010.

Notes to editors

1. HESA data is collected from all publicly funded Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the UK, plus the University of Buckingham, which is a non-publicly-funded institution. The 2008/09 data covers 166 HEIs (131 in England, 12 in Wales, 19 in Scotland and 4 in Northern Ireland).
   
   
2. HESA cannot accept responsibility for any inferences or conclusions derived from the data by third parties.
   
   
3. *Atypical staff contracts are those with working arrangements that are not permanent, involve complex employment relationships and/or involve work away from the supervision of the normal work provider, only a minimum data set is required. See definitions below for more details.
   
   
4. Definitions of the terms used in this press release follow:
   
   

Definitions

Coverage

The staff record provides data in respect of the characteristics of members of all academic and non-academic staff employed under a contract of employment by a higher education institution (HEI) in the UK.

The HESA staff person population is an indicator of those individuals who have one or more contracts that are active on 1 December within the reporting period. Atypical staff are not counted in this population.

The HESA staff person population is used in analyses of staff person attributes by full-person equivalents (FPE).

The HESA staff atypical population is an indicator of those individuals who have only atypical contracts within the reporting period.

Full-person equivalent (FPE)

Individuals can hold more than one contract with an institution and each contract may involve more than one different activity. In published analyses staff counts have been divided amongst their activities in proportion to the declared FTE for each activity. This results in counts of full person equivalents (FPE). Staff FPE counts are calculated on the basis of contract activities that were active on 1 December of the reporting period (using the HESA staff contract population).

SOC - Occupational coding for higher education staff

Academic staff are defined as academic professionals who are responsible for planning, directing and undertaking academic teaching and research within HE institutions. They also include vice-chancellors, medical practitioners, dentists, veterinarians and other health care professionals who undertake lecturing or research activities. All academic staff fall into group 2A of the SOC classification, regardless of their discipline (e.g. science, engineering, social sciences, humanities, languages).

Non-academic staff are defined as members of staff who fall into one of the remaining 12 occupational categories such as managers, non-academic professionals, student welfare workers, secretaries, caretakers and cleaners.

Mode of Employment

Full-time staff are those whose contracts state that their mode of employment is full-time. This includes staff who work full-time for part of a year and term-time only staff who work full-time during the term.

Part-time staff are those staff that work anything less than full-time. This includes the atypical category where institutions were unable to assign staff contracts to either the full-time or the part-time category.

Mode of employment is an attribute of the contract, not the person. Therefore, a person will be counted as wholly part-time, even if they hold a number of part-time contracts that sum to one FTE. The FPE allocated to the full-time category will only reflect the people that hold a full-time contract. This is consistent with the treatment of other attributes of the contract.

**Gender

Staff whose gender is 'not known' have been included in totals but are not shown separately. Staff whose gender is 'not known' have been excluded from percentage calculations.

Terms of employment

Terms of employment describes the type of contract(s) a member of staff has with the institution at the date the data is returned to HESA, or date of leaving if earlier.

Permanent staff are those who are employed on a contract of employment that states the member of staff as permanent or on an open-ended contract. This includes term-time only staff who are employed on an open-ended contract.

Fixed-term contract staff are those employed for a fixed period of time or have an end date on their contract of employment. This includes staff on rolling fixed-term contracts.

Atypical staff are those whose working arrangements are not permanent, involve complex employment relationships and/or involve work away from the supervision of the normal work provider. These may be characterised by a high degree of flexibility for both the work provider and the working person, and may involve a triangular relationship that includes an agent. Source: DTI Discussion Document on Employment Status, July 2003, paragraph 23.

In addition to this definition from the DTI, some HE specific guidance has been devised by HESA in consultation with institutions. Atypical contracts meet one or more of the following conditions:

• are for less than four consecutive weeks - meaning that no statement of terms and conditions needs to be issued
• are for one-off/short-term tasks - for example answering phones during clearing, staging an exhibition, organising a conference. There is no mutual obligation between the work provider and working person beyond the given period of work or project. In some cases individuals will be paid a fixed fee for the piece of work unrelated to hours/time spent
• involve work away from the supervision of the normal work provider - but not as part of teaching company schemes or for teaching and research supervision associated with the provision of distance learning education
• involve a high degree of flexibility often in a contract to work as-and-when required - for example conference catering, student ambassadors, student demonstrators.

Source of basic salary

Source of basic salary indicates whether contract salaries are paid wholly or in part from funds other than general institution funds. Whether income can be regarded as general institution funds or not depends on the distinction between unrestricted and restricted income as defined in the 'Statement of Recommended Practice: Accounting in Higher Education Institutions' (SORP). Restricted income is that which can only be applied to a specific purpose or activity so designated by the grantor or donor.

Wholly institutionally financed staff contracts are those paid wholly from general institution funds.

Other sources of finance - these staff contracts are paid mainly or wholly from sources other than general institution funds. Other sources of finance describes those contract salaries where the proportion financed by other sources is greater than 50%. These sources include NHS/General Medical or General Dental practice or Department of Health, BIS Research Councils, UK based charities, UK central government bodies and local authorities, UK industry, commerce & public corporations, European Union (EU) sources, other overseas sources and other sources not listed.

Academic employment function

The academic employment function of a member of staff relates to the academic contract of employment and not the actual work undertaken.

Teaching only staff are those whose contracts of employment state that they are employed only to undertake teaching.

Teaching & research staff are those whose contracts of employment state that they are employed to undertake both teaching and research.

Research only staff are those whose contracts of employment state that the primary academic employment function is research only, even though the contract may include a limited number of hours teaching.

Neither teaching nor research staff are those whose contracted academic employment function is neither teaching nor research, e.g. Vice-Chancellor.

Rounding strategy

In the text and tables the figures presented are rounded, 0, 1 and 2 are rounded to 0. All other numbers are rounded up or down, to the nearest 5.

Enquiries

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