Higher Education Staff Statistics: UK, 2022/23

How many staff are there in HE?

In 2022/23, 223 HE providers reported staff data to HESA. Of these providers, 216 were present in 2021/22 and 7 were new additions. Among them, one provider demerged into five independent bodies, and another one re-registered as a new entity. The three remaining additional providers were included after being added to the OfS Register in the Approved (fee cap) category during the reporting period. These three additional providers accounted for 35 academic staff (excluding atypical) in 2022/23. 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 2022:

• There were 240,420 academic staff (excluding atypical) employed in the HE sector, an increase of three percent from 234,020 on 1 December 2021.
• The number of academic staff (excluding atypical) employed on full-time contracts on 1 December 2022 increased by three percent relative to 1 December 2021. The number on part-time contracts have increased by two percent over the same time period.
• Numbers of academic staff (excluding atypical) with UK and non-EU nationality has 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 2022/23, 62,690 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 2022/23 was 5,065. Further detail on staff FTE will be published on 30 January 2024 in our Higher Education Staff Data, 2022/23 open dataset.

What are the employment conditions of HE staff?

Source of basic salary

• Among academic staff, 191,795 or 80% had a basic salary that was financed entirely by the HE provider in 2022/23, reflecting the same percentage as observed in 2021/22. 
• 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 2022/23, 103,005 or 43% of academic staff were employed on contracts described as having a teaching and research function. The total for 2021/22 was 100,170 or 43%.
• A further 36% 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 64% in 2022/23.

Contract levels 

• Among academic staff, 24,430 or 10% were employed on a contract level described as a professor in 2022/23. 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, 31% were female in 2022/23. The percentage of female professors increased by one percentage point since 2021/22, and by two percentage points since 2020/21.
• Academic staff employed on other senior academic contracts comprised 42% females in 2022/23. This has gradually increased from 33% in 2013/14.

Terms of employment

• Among academic staff, 71,420, or 30% were employed on fixed-term contracts in 2022/23.
• Of full-time academic staff, 22% were employed on fixed-term contracts in 2022/23. In contrast, 43% of part-time academic staff were employed on fixed-term contracts, marking an eight percentage point decrease from 2021/22.

Who's working in HE?

• Female staff accounted for 50% of full-time staff reported to HESA and 66% of part-time staff in 2022/23.
• In 2022/23, there were more male academic staff than female (123,290 and 116,540 respectively). Figures 2 and 3 show that 44% of full-time academic staff were female.

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

Academic year 2022/23

Academic marker            Mode of employment

 

Download chart data (csv) | Download source data (csv) | About SB267 Figure 4 | Notes

Notes

Who produced this Statistical Bulletin?

This bulletin has been produced by Jisc 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.

HESA merged with Jisc in October 2022. Jisc was designated as a producer of official statistics in August 2023. Official and Accredited Official Statistics which are now published by Jisc will continue to be published under the HESA brand. The data collection activity which delivers the data to support production of official statistics also continues to be undertaken under the HESA brand.

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.

Of the 223 HE providers reporting staff data to HESA in 2022/23, 126 opted into returning data about all of their non-academic staff. The remaining 97 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?