On 17 January, the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) released the first set of data from the 2011⁄12 Staff record. This data provides information about staff employment at UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) on 1 December 2011. The results have been produced in partnership with the UK administrations and have been released upon approval by the UK Statistics Authority. A detailed analysis of the HESA Staff record will be released in March 2013. Felix did a brief analysis of the results, so you don’t have to…

All Staff

The data shows that on 1 December 2011, there were 378,250 staff employed in the HE sector, demonstrating a decrease of 0.9% from the 371,790 staff employed on 1 December 2010. The all staff count excludes atypical staff. 181,385 (48.0%) were academic professionals compared to 181,185 (47.5%) in 2010. In 2011 the percentages of female staff remained constant from last year, with 46.9% of full-time staff and 67.0% of part-time staff. However, there was an increase in the number of females with managerial positions, with 8,740 in 2011 and 8,770 in 2010. In addition, there was a decrease in the number of females employed as laboratory, engineering, building and IT technicians.

Academic Staff

Despite the overall decrease in higher education staff, there was actually a 0.5% increase in academic staff, with 200 more than the previous year. There was an increase in female academic staff from the previous year; with 80,775 (44.5%) female academic staff in 2011 compared to 80,090 (44.2%) in 2010. There was a 5.7% increase in the number of academic staff employed as professors, with 18,465 in 2011 and 17,465 in 2010. The most notable change was the 9.7% increase in female professors, there were 3,790 in 2011 and only 3,455 in 2010. Consequently, the proportion of women who are now professors is 20.5%. This increase seen by female professors is more than double the rise seen by the previous year (2010-2011 from 2009-2010) at 4.1%.

Furthermore, in comparison to 2008-2009, there has been a 5.3% increase in professors, with 930 more professors now employed in UK higher education institutions. Additionally, there has been a 16% rise in the number of female professors from 2008-2009, with their currently being 520 more employed in UK higher education.

Taking a look at the academic staff responsibilities, it can be seen the largest increase was for employment in solely teaching roles, this sector showed an increase of 820 employees to 45,825. There was also an increase in research staff and those employed for both teaching as well as research.

BBC News reported that the “general secretary of the University and College Union, Sally Hunt, welcomed the increase in female professors but said there was more to be done”. She said she is “pleased that there has been a rise in the number of female professors in the sector. However, universities still have more to do to ensure that staff are promoted on merit irrespective of their background or gender. Students want to be taught by the best and brightest, and staff want to work in universities where gender is not an issue when it comes to career advancement.”