Higher Education Staff Statistics: UK, 2021/22

How many staff are there in HE?

In 2021/22, 216 HE providers reported staff data to HESA. Of these providers, 213 were present in 2020/21 and 3 were new additions this year after being added to the OfS Register in the Approved (fee cap) category during the reporting period. More information on data coverage is given in the notes section and the expandable box How are HE staff counted by HESA? below Figure 1.

On 1 December 2021:

• There were 233,930 academic staff (excluding atypical) employed in the HE sector, an increase of 4% from 224,530 on 1 December 2020.
• The number of academic staff (excluding atypical) employed on full-time contracts on 1 December 2021 increased by 2% relative to 1 December 2020. The number on part-time contracts have increased by 9% over the same time period.
• Numbers of academic staff (excluding atypical) with UK and non-EU nationality have increased compared to the previous year, while the number of EU nationals has declined.

The contract marker filter on Figure 1 provides an option to view data on the number of staff on academic atypical contracts. Please note that staff on atypical contracts form a separate population which is not comparable to those on other contract types (see the statement on the use of HESA staff data for more information). This bulletin does not include information on non-academic atypical contracts. Since 2015/16, atypical staff on non-academic contracts have been excluded from the coverage of the Staff record.

In 2021/22, 62,730 staff were employed by HE providers on academic atypical contracts. 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.

The total full-time equivalent (FTE) value of atypical staff in 2021/22 was 5,595. Further detail on staff FTE will be published on 21 February 2023 in our Higher Education Staff Data, 2021/22 open dataset.

What are the employment conditions of HE staff?

Source of basic salary

• Among academic staff, 186,625 or 80% had a basic salary that was financed entirely by the HE provider in 2021/22. This figure has increased from 78% in 2020/21.
• The remaining 20% had other sources of basic salary. Other sources can include being partly financed by the HE provider, financed by research councils, UK branches of multinational companies, the NHS and/or UK and overseas charities.

Academic employment function

• In 2021/22, 100,160 or 43% of academic staff were employed on contracts described as having a teaching and research function. The total for 2020/21 was 98,630 or 44%.
• A further 35% of academic staff were on teaching only contracts. This percentage has steadily increased year-on-year since 2015/16, when it was 26%.
• Over the same period, the proportion of academic staff with research in their contract has decreased year-on-year, from 73% in 2015/16 to 65% in 2021/22.

Contract levels 

• Among academic staff, 23,515 or 10% were employed on a contract level described as a professor in 2021/22. It should be noted that this is likely to be an undercount of all professors because many will fall into more senior levels, i.e. Heads of Department.
• Of professors, 30% were female in 2021/22. The percentage of female professors increased by two percentage points since 2020/21.
• Academic staff employed on other senior academic contracts comprised 41% females in 2021/22. This has gradually increased from 33% in 2013/14.

Terms of employment

• Among academic staff, 77,475, or 33% were employed on fixed-term contracts in 2021/22.
• Of full-time academic staff, 24% were employed on fixed-term contracts in 2021/22. In contrast, 51% of part-time academic staff were employed on fixed-term contracts.

Who's working in HE?

• Female staff accounted for 49% of full-time staff reported to HESA and 66% of part-time staff in 2021/22.
• In 2021/22, there were more male than female academic staff (121,690 and 111,925 respectively). Figures 2 and 3 show that 43% of full-time academic staff were female.

Figure 4 - All staff (excluding atypical) by mode of employment, contract marker and sex

Academic year 2021/22

Academic marker            Mode of employment

 

Download chart data (csv) | Download source data (csv) | About SB264 Figure 4 | Notes

Notes

Who produced this Statistical Bulletin?

This bulletin has been produced by HESA in collaboration with statisticians from the Department for Education, the Office for Students, the Welsh Government, the Scottish Government and the Department for the Economy Northern Ireland. It has been released according to the arrangements approved by the UK Statistics Authority.

On 4 October 2022 HESA merged with Jisc (the UK’s digital body for tertiary education). As part of the merger arrangements HESA (Limited) has been retained as a company limited by guarantee, with Jisc as sole member. The former staff of HESA Limited have been transferred to Jisc. HESA remains a designated producer of Official Statistics under the relevant Official Statistics Orders. Following the merger the Board of Directors of HESA Limited have taken the decision to formally delegate the production and release of HESA’s range of official and national statistics to Jisc.

Production and release processes are now undertaken by the same team of staff who were responsible for this work prior to the merger. These staff remain appropriately skilled and experienced in compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics and the associated Pre-release Access to Official Statistics Orders. Statistical policies and procedures established before the merger (and previously assessed as compliant with the Code of Practice for Statistics by the Office for Statistics Regulation) remain in force and materially unchanged. Governance of delegated production and release activities is provided by a ‘Data Collection and Statistics Oversight Board’ which includes the members of the Board of Directors of HESA Limited.

On the basis of these delegated statistical production arrangements, the regular HESA publications continue to be published as official and national statistics. Users of these statistical products can be confident in their ongoing compliance with the pillars of quality, value and trustworthiness as articulated within the Code of Practice for Statistics.

What is the coverage of data in this release?

There are notable changes to the coverage of Staff data from 2019/20. Prior to 2019/20, the data covers all academic and non-academic staff from all publicly funded HE providers in the UK (and the University of Buckingham). From 2019/20 it became optional for providers in England and Northern Ireland to report data about staff on non-academic contracts (with the exception of any non-academic contracts held by vice-chancellors/heads of institutions or governors).

A further change in England from 2019/20 was the introduction of the Office for Students’ (OfS) Register and the two types of registration categories available to providers in England; Approved (fee cap) and Approved (further information relating to the OfS Register can be found in section III of the pdf document Securing student success: Regulatory framework for higher education in England [PDF]). Those registered in the Approved (fee cap) category are covered within the 2019/20 data presented, alongside all publicly funded HE providers in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Of the 197 HE providers reporting staff data to HESA in 2019/20, 131 opted into returning data about all of their non-academic staff. The remaining 66 opted out and therefore only returned non-academic staff data pertaining to vice-chancellors/heads of institutions or governors. Due to this, we advise caution in interpreting this data.

Of the 213 HE providers reporting staff data to HESA in 2020/21, 130 opted into returning data about all of their non-academic staff. The remaining 83 opted out and therefore only returned non-academic staff data pertaining to vice-chancellors/heads of institutions or governors. Due to this, we advise caution in interpreting this data.

Of the 216 HE providers reporting staff data to HESA in 2021/22, 129 opted into returning data about all of their non-academic staff. The remaining 87 opted out and therefore only returned non-academic staff data pertaining to vice-chancellors/heads of institutions or governors. Due to this, we advise caution in interpreting this data.

Has data for earlier years been revised?