Lecturers paid less than other professionals (2024)

Frederick Guy would rather not know what he could be earning in the City. With his PhD in economics, it could be five times what he is on now.

"I don't want to find out. It would make me feel bad," the university lecturer says, cupping his hands over his ears. "Am I underpaid? Absolutely. But I am happy in my job."

Scholars like Guy, a management lecturer at Birkbeck College, University of London, have not chosen academia for its pay packet. A study out today shows that a career as a university academic pays less than almost every other graduate profession. Only secondary school teachers and further education lecturers fare worse.

Trailing behind

While a university academic earns on average £8.92 an hour, a dentist (in both the private and public sector) is on £12.88, a consultant on £10.75, a doctor on £10.56 and a lawyer on £10.23. Accountants are on £9.63 an hour and pharmacists £9.19. Further education lecturers and secondary school teachers trail behind on £8.38 and £7.91 an hour respectively.

These are the findings of a one-year study, Higher Education Academic Salaries in the UK, by Dr James Walker, a management lecturer at Reading University's business school, and Dr Anna Vignoles, a reader in the economics of education at the Institute of Education, London.

The pair analysed the earnings of just over 50,000 university graduates, 1,437 of whom were university academics, from data in the UK Labour Force Survey between 1993 and 2005. The data gives the ethnicity, age, gender, education level and geographical location of each graduate. This allowed the study's authors to compare the wages of similar individuals in different careers. They found that academics on average earn 49% less than dentists, 24% less than doctors, 23% less than lawyers, 17% less than accountants and 3% less than the average graduate at any point in their career.

The study shows academics are overworked as well. The average number of hours worked, both paid and unpaid, was, at 47 hours a week, second only to doctors (on 51 hours a week). The average graduate works 44 hours a week.

"Once one compares university academics with graduates, or other similar occupations that require a substantial amount of postgraduate training, their relative economic position does not look good," Vignoles says.

The 2003 government white paper, The Future of Higher Education, acknowledged that pay was a major issue for universities and that there had been a relative decline in salaries in recent years.

"Academic pay is an important policy issue, because if the relative pay of academics falls, it is likely to lead to lower-quality individuals entering and remaining in the profession, as well as a brain-drain to countries that reward academics more highly," says Walker. "These trends are in turn likely to have a knock-on effect on the quality of UK higher education."

"The UK is a net importer of academics," adds Vignoles - because pay is relatively low, vacancies are left unfilled and foreign academics fill the gap, she explains.

Sally Hunt, joint general secretary of the University and College Union, agrees. "For too long, universities have relied on the goodwill of their staff as workloads have shot up and pay has declined in relative terms," she says. "Unless pay and workloads are urgently addressed, the quality of higher education in the UK will be under threat."

But Bill Rammell, the higher education minister, says more is being spent on universities now than 10 years ago. "This government's record on funding higher education is the best for decades," he says. "We are spending 20% more in real terms than 10 years ago after year-on-year cuts by the last government. Funding is expanding further through variable fees and endowments. And I don't believe there is evidence of a brain-drain."

Could it be that academics are in part paid less because other professions are more successful at securing pay rises?

"Some predominantly public-sector groups, such as doctors, have been very effective at securing higher pay," says Walker. "It could also indicate that doctors have greater political and economic power ... Clearly, in the case of doctors, this may rightly reflect the higher value that society places on their skills.

Unattractive sector

"Our study suggests that it is academics, but also further education lecturers and secondary school teachers, who are paid below the average graduate - the implication being that the education sector as a whole is unattractive in terms of pay."

Academics secured a pay rise of 13.1% over three years last summer after a three-month dispute between unions and employers. However, the unions had called for an increase of about 25%. None the less, it is likely that the pay rise will help to shrink the gap between lecturers' wages and those in other professions.

As will an agreement in 2004 for all university staff - from porters to professors - to be placed on a single pay scale. Individual universities can decide where their staff are on the scale, so some lecturers will be paid more.

Vignoles acknowledges that the pay deal and the 2004 agreement will reduce the disparity between the hourly earnings of academics and others shown in the study. "Obviously they will improve the situation somewhat, but just as the public sector is getting pay settlements, so the private sector is also experiencing pay changes," she says.

"Increasingly, we will have to look to private funding sources to improve pay. The introduction of tuition fees is one step to get more resources into the sector, and I think it is more desirable and inevitable that the cap on tuition fees will come off to deal with issues such as relative pay.

"An academic should be paid relative to the pay opportunities they have. It is not a moral judgment, it is a response to the market. A humanities lecturer in the north-east, for example, should be on less than someone lecturing on business in London."

A solution like that, however, will probably be as popular to academics as low pay and overtime.

· How do you think academic pay compares with other professions? Send your views to education.letters@theguardian.com