Higher Education Staff Data 2021/22
Open data release from HESA shows increasing numbers of academic staff employed in the UK.
The number of academic staff employed at UK higher education providers grew by 4% in 2021/22, matching the 4% rise in the number of students. The number of EU nationality academic staff fell by 1% while the number of non-EU nationality staff grew by 9%.
The proportion of academic staff with a non-UK nationality has stayed at 32% for the last three years with EU nationality staff leaving the sector while non-EU nationality staff numbers continue to rise.
Disciplines with the highest proportion of non-UK nationality staff include Economics & econometrics (68%) and Chemical engineering (56%). The highest proportion of EU nationality staff (35%) were working in Modern languages departments.
The HESA data includes information about the inflow and outflow of academic staff in the UK higher education sector. The 4% rise in total numbers includes 36,430 new staff entering the sector while 32,105 left.
9% of the outflow from the UK academic staff population whose destinations were known went to work in higher education overseas while 16% left to enter the UK private sector.
Among new entrants to the sector, 25% had previously been students in the UK and 25% had been working in the UK private sector.
Today’s open data Official Statistics release Higher Education Staff Data includes detailed breakdowns of staff demographic and contract characteristics in five topics:
- Who’s working in HE?
- What areas do they work in?
- What are their employment conditions?
- What are their salaries?
- Where do they work, come from, and go to?
Most data tables include eight years of data, with older data available through HESA’s publications archive.
Notes
- Headline statistics in this press release exclude ‘atypical’ staff. Atypical contracts are generally non-permanent contracts for short, one-off, or as-and-when tasks. Atypical staff figures are counted differently and shown separately and should not be added to non-atypical figures. See the Terms of employment definition for more detail.
- Statistics in this press release relate to staff employed at UK higher education providers on 1 December 2021 in the academic year running from 1 August 2021 to 31 July 2022.
- Percentages exclude unknown values.
- See Definitions: Staff for definitions of terms used in the release and explanation of the coverage of statistics.
- See Upcoming data releases for a schedule of Official Statistics releases from HESA.
- HESA is now part of Jisc. Jisc is now the data controller of personal data previously controlled by HESA. Privacy information on the HESA website has been updated.
- Jisc cannot accept responsibility for any inferences or conclusions derived from the data by third parties.


Press Officer