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Staff at higher education institutions in the United Kingdom 2012/13

Statistical First Release SFR198

This is the first release of data from the 2012/13 HESA Staff record. The release provides details of staff employment at UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) on 1 December 2012. It has been produced in partnership with the UK administrations and is released in accordance with the arrangements approved by the UK Statistics Authority.

Following the regular review of the HESA Staff record and consultation with the sector there have been several changes to the collection of staff data for 2012/13. A document summarising the changes that have been made to the Staff record for 2012/13 following the review can be found on the HESA website. The changes which impact upon the figures reported in this SFR include the revised coding of activities and method for reporting academic contracts, the introduction of a new contract levels field and a new method of defining professors in the record.

Detailed analysis of the HESA Staff record will be available in the reference volume Staff in Higher Education Institutions 2012/13 due to be released in February 2014. 

Key Points - all staff

On 1 December 2012 there were 382,515 staff (excluding atypical staff, refer to notes to tables 1) employed in the HE sector, showing an increase of 1.1% from 378,250 staff employed on 1 December 2011. The method for defining academic contracts has changed for 2012/13 and 185,585 staff (48.5%) were employed on academic contracts, the majority of these were in professional occupations (refer to the definitions for further detail of occupational classifications). In 2011/12, 181,385 (48.0%) staff were employed on academic contracts. 

254,490 staff were employed on full-time contracts (248,125 in 2011) and 128,025 on part-time contracts (130,125 in 2011).

47.1% of full-time staff and 67.3% of part-time staff were female in 2012 showing slight increases in the proportions of female staff from 2011 (46.9% and 67.0% respectively).

Over the 2012/13 academic year 74,075 atypical staff were employed by HEIs on academic contracts. A further 36,495 atypical staff on non-academic contracts were reported in the 2012/13 return (refer to notes to tables 1). 

Key Points - academic staff

82,670 (44.5%) of academic staff on 1 December 2012 were female compared to 80,775 (44.5%) in 2011.

94,600 (51.0%) academic staff on 1 December were employed on contracts described as having a teaching and research function. 46,795 (25.2%) had an academic employment function described as teaching only. 

17,880 academic staff were employed on a contract level described as a professor in 2012 (refer to notes to table 2). 3870 of these staff were female representing 21.7%. 

119,595 (64.4%) of academic staff were employed on open-ended or permanent contracts in 2012 compared to 115,680 (63.8%) in 2011 and 35.6% were employed on fixed term contracts compared to 36.2% in 2011.

Tables

Table 1

All staff (excluding non-academic atypical) in UK HE institutions by academic employment marker, activity standard occupational classification, mode of employment and sex 2012/13

Table 2

Summary of academic staff (excluding atypical) in UK HE institutions 2012/13

Tables showing 2011/12 data can be found here.

Tables showing 2010/11 data can be found here.

Notes to tables

  1. 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. Please note, these contracts are recorded based on a different population definition from non-atypical contracts, see definitions below for more details. Reporting of atypical staff was changed for the 2012/13 collection with institutions only obliged to return atypical staff on academic contracts.
  2. Prior to 2012/13, 'Professor' was a term associated with those returned in the HESA Staff record as holding a contract for a professorial role. From 2012/13, this term is reserved for those who align with the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) contract level of 'Professor', and as such the data is not directly comparable across years. Professors on contracts with multiple roles may have been classified at a different level, for example UCEA level 4A. See definitions for further detail.

Definitions

The data in this SFR in based on the 2012/13 HESA Staff record. The statistics in this SFR are derived by HESA from data collected from all publicly funded Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the UK, plus the University of Buckingham, which is a non-publicly-funded institution.

Coverage

The HESA Staff record provides data in respect of the characteristics of staff employed under a contract of employment at a reporting higher education institution (HEI) in the UK. The range of data required about an individual and the contract(s) that they hold will depend on the nature of those contracts and also the classification of the activity for which the contract exists.

Data is required for all academic staff, and non-academic staff if the contract is not atypical. Atypical academic staff may be returned on an optional basis. There are four exceptions to this coverage:

  • Agency staff
  • Self-employed staff
  • Honorary contracts where the contract is not deemed to be a contract of employment
  • Staff employed not by the HEI, but by a company consolidated into the HEI's accounts.

Atypical staff are defined as individuals with contracts of employment and/or for whom the HEI is liable to pay Class 1 National Insurance contributions, and whose relationship with the HEI during the reporting period would meet the following definition:

'Atypical' should include staff 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: Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Discussion Document on Employment Status, July 2003, paragraph 23).

Staff (excluding atypical) are those members of staff where one or more of the contracts held during the reporting period cannot be defined as atypical, and includes open-ended/permanent and fixed-term contracts. For these staff there is a requirement to return a wider range of data (which may include salary information and start and end dates of employment and contracts).

Academic staff are defined as staff at least one of whose contracts of employment relates to an academic function and whose contract activity can be categorised as 'Managers, directors and senior officials', 'Professional occupations' or 'Associate professional and technical occupations' as defined by the 2010 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) major groups 1, 2 or 3. This may therefore include vice-chancellors and other senior academic managers, medical practitioners, dentists, veterinarians and other health care professionals whose contract of employment includes an academic function.

The academic function may be teaching, research, teaching and research or neither teaching nor research (where an academic professional that has taken up a senior administrative responsibility but there is no change to the academic function in their contract of employment).

Non-academic staff are defined as those that do not have an academic employment function. They include managers, non-academic professionals, student welfare workers, secretaries, caretakers and cleaners.

The HESA staff contract population is an indicator of those contracts that were active on 1 December within the reporting period. Atypical staff contracts are not counted in this population.

The HESA staff contract population is used in analyses of staff contract 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).

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 whose contracts state that their mode of employment is part-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.

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.

Open ended/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: Department of Trade and Industry (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 general institution financed staff contracts are those paid wholly from general institution funds.

All other sources of finance - includes staff contracts partly financed by the institution, plus staff contracts paid partly, or wholly from sources other than general institution funds.

Other sources includes contracts returned as: NHS/General Medical or General Dental practice or Department of Health; BIS Research Councils (including Research council - not specified); UK central government bodies and local authorities; UK industry, commerce and public corporations; charities (including Cancer Research UK, Wellcome Trust, other Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) plus other charitable foundation); EU government bodies; EU other; other overseas sources plus other sources.

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 (up to 6 hours per week or pro-rata for part-time staff).

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

Professorial status

Professor indicates a member of staff holding a contract which aligns with the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) contract level 5A 'Professor'. This level indicates a senior academic appointment which may carry the title of Professor but which does not have departmental line management responsibilities. Further guidance on the levels to which contracts can be aligned may be found here

Professorial status is not available for non-academic atypical staff.

Sex

This field records the legal sex of the staff member, as opposed to the gender with which they identify.

Due to the requirement to return this information to HM Revenue & Customs, legal sex information will be known for all staff with the exception those holding solely non-academic atypical contracts, for whom sex may legitimately not be known.

SOC - Occupational coding for higher education staff

The Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) provides a national standard for categorising occupational information. SOC forms the basis of occupational classification in a variety of national surveys that collect statistical information such as the Labour Force Survey and New Earnings Survey. The utilisation of SOC for classifying occupations within the HE sector therefore both allows for the heterogeneity of occupations that exist and enables comparisons to be made with other sectors of the economy and from a variety of data sources.

From 2012/13, HESA use the SOC2010 variant of the SOC coding frame. This version maintains the same nine Major Groups used in previous versions of SOC, but it is no longer possible to replicate the variant previously used by HESA specifically for staff in the HE sector, which permitted staff to be grouped into thirteen broad occupational activities. In addition, the concept of academic and non-academic activities has been divorced from association with the SOC Major Group, due to the incorporation of both types of activities at sub-Major level. Consequently, staff may be pursuing an academic or non academic activity within a given SOC Major Group, whereas previously certain SOC Groups were held to be entirely academic or non-academic in their own right.

Publication of staff activities by SOC Major Group may therefore now occur with or without reference to the academic nature of that activity, whereas previously this was implicit in the titles of the activities published: care should be taken when comparing data across years.

Activity SOC Major Group

  1. Managers, directors and senior officials
  2. Professional occupations
  3. Associate professional and technical occupations
  4. Administrative and secretarial occupations
  5. Skilled trades occupations
  6. Caring, leisure and other service occupations
  7. Sales and customer service occupations
  8. Process, plant and machine operatives
  9. Elementary occupations.

In certain analyses the activities may also be split by academic and non-academic employment status:

Academic staff are defined as professionals holding a contract for planning, directing and undertaking academic teaching and research within HEIs. Examples of such contracts include those for vice-chancellors, medical practitioners, dentists, veterinarians and other health care professionals who undertake lecturing or research activities.

Non-academic staff are defined as members of staff who are not holders of an academic contract, including managers, non-academic professionals, student welfare workers, secretaries, caretakers and cleaners.

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.

HESA cannot accept responsibility for any inferences or conclusions derived from the data by third parties.

Enquiries

Enquiries should be directed to the Press office at the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), 95 Promenade, Cheltenham, GL50 1HZ, telephone: 01242 211120.

Ends

Embargo

23 January 2014, 9:30

Coverage

UK

Themes

Children, education and skills

Issued by

HESA, 95 Promenade, Cheltenham, GL50 1HZ

Press enquiries

01242 211120

Public enquiries

01242 211133

Statistician

Jenny Bermingham

Email

[email protected]