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Nearly 80% of professors working in UK universities are men, research shows. Photograph: Alamy
Nearly 80% of professors working in UK universities are men, research shows. Photograph: Alamy

White males monopolise best paid jobs in UK universities, report shows

This article is more than 9 years old

Nearly 80% of professors are men, while just a fifth of vice-chancellors are women, says study that bemoans slow progress in reducing inequality

Academics: how much do you know about university pay? – quiz

White males are clinging on to the best paid jobs in universities, while equality initiatives are struggling to gain ground, according to a study by the Equality Challenge Unit (ECU).

Data collected last academic year by the ECU, a charity that advises universities on diversity issues, suggests that 78.3% of professors are men, while only 4% of black academic staff are professors.

“Universities need to be focusing on specific areas of action if we are going to transform the culture of higher education into one that is fair, inclusive, and offers the same chances to everyone,” said David Ruebain, chief executive of ECU.

Gender

The data - which was gathered in 2012-13 - shows that women are more likely to work part time as support staff or in an entry level academic role. They struggle to progress up the career ladder.

Across both academic and professional departments, figures show that men are proportionally three times more likely to be in a senior level role than women. While 11.8% of male staff are in senior contract levels, the rate is 4.3% for women.

Despite women making up 44.5% of universities’ academic workforce, only around 20% of vice-chancellors (35) are women. Nearly 80% of professors are men.

This gender divide is more pronounced for professors working in science, engineering and technology (SET) – 84% of full-time professors working in those subject areas are men, compared with 16% who are women.

The majority of female academics (51%) work in non-SET areas, while 57.4% of men worked in SET subjects.

ECU also reported that men are far more likely to be in highly-paid roles than women. More than a third (34.2%) of male academic staff earn over £50,000, compared with 19.5% of female academic staff. Among both full-time and part-time academic staff, a higher proportion of women earn less than £30,000 than men.

Ethnicity

In just under a decade, the number of UK academics from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds increased by almost 70% – rising from 5995 to 10055 between 2003-04 and 2012-13. But UK BME staff still account for just 5.9% of academics – up from 4.8% in 2003.

And, in some instances, they are far less likely to make it to the top jobs. Some 10.7% of white academic staff are professors compared with 9.5% of BME academics. The same figure stood at 4% for black UK academics and 13.5% for Chinese UK academics.

These trends in career progression had an impact on pay, as is shown below. A higher proportion of white academic staff earned over £50,000 than BME academic staff.

Again, there are significant differences between ethnic minority groups. While 34% of UK Chinese academic staff earned over £50,000, this is true of only 17.4% of UK black academic staff.

On top of this, the ECU also reported a median ethnicity pay gap of 2.9% for UK staff.

Professor Andrew Pilkington at the University of Northampton, said: “Though there was an Equality act in 2010, its effectiveness has been diminished with the red tape challenge and the diminished funding for the enforcement body, the Equality and human rights commission. In this context, it is not surprising to see so little progress especially in breaking through glass ceilings.”

The external pressures on universities have steadily diminished and issues relating to equality and diversity are now virtually off the agenda, said Pilkington.

“Universities need action planning with explicit targets, equality monitoring and regular reviews to make progress,” he added, “but in practice few universities take this seriously.”

Kalwant Bhopal, a reader in education at the University of Southampton, added: “We need to monitor the selection and recruitment processes happening in universities – institutions should consider who is applying for which posts, who is shortlisted and why.”

“Is it that BME academics aren’t applying for senior positions, or is there something else going on?”

Disability

The proportion of staff disclosing as disabled increased from 2.2% in 2003-04 to 3.9% in 2012-13. But this is still much lower than the proportion of students doing so, which stood at 9.5% in 2012-13. Government figures suggest that 16% of working age adults are disabled.

A higher proportion of non-disabled academic staff are in the highest salary range of over £50,000 than disabled academic staff. Among full-time staff this difference was 0.4%. But the gap was much wider among part-time staff, at 4.1%.

Across the UK, the median disability pay gap was 4.8% and the mean pay gap was 6%. However, the pay gap varied considerably by nation and employment activity.

Age

ECU warns that the higher education sector could face problems in retaining staff, pointing out that leaving rates were highest among academic staff aged 30 and under. A third of under-30s left their institution between 2011-12 and 2012-13.

Some 23.5% of leavers in this age group moved to another higher education institution. But just over a fifth (21.5%) left higher education for the private sector, and 27.8% were not in regular employment.

More like this:
Black, female and postgraduate: why I cannot be the only one
My university life as a woman professor
‘There ought to be far more black professors’
Where are the women in universities?

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