UK Universities Set to Strike in ‘Last-Ditch Fight Over Existential Cuts’

University lecturers are set to walk out over “existential” cuts and course closures, as thousands of students face major disruptions as the new academic year begins.

At least eight universities have announced industrial action for the coming year, including three Russell Group institutions.

At Edinburgh, staff are striking for five weeks to protest £140m of cuts, 1,800 potential job losses and management’s refusal to rule out compulsory redundancies.

The university has also announced that 90 degree programmes will be scrapped from 2027.

The kind of cuts many universities are proposing “will fundamentally reshape higher education in the UK”, Emile Chabal professor of contemporary history at Edinburgh University, told Novara Media. He added there was a risk of university contraction leading to a “second deindustrialisation”, given the outsized contribution universities make to local economies.  

Peter Mathieson, Edinburgh University’s principal and vice-chancellor received £422,000 in total remuneration in 2023/24 – equivalent to more than 10 times the university’s median staff pay. As part of his package, Mathieson lives rent-free in a university-owned mansion on one of Edinburgh’s premier streets, where maintenance costs are also borne by the university.

Since Mathieson took up the role in February 2018, the university has acquired more than £1bn in capital assets. Staff at the university have described its financial woes as “manufactured”.

Writing on X, Chabal, said: “I am not given to hyperbole when it comes to university industrial relations, but this feels like an existential event. The heart of the university is being torn out, with long-lasting consequences. These strikes are a last-ditch attempt to stop that. Will anyone listen?”

91% of union members at the University of Exeter voted in favour of industrial action, although dates have yet to be set for the walkout. As many as 500 jobs are at risk, with the University and College Union (UCU) warning that more than 80% of arts and humanities staff were at risk of losing their jobs.

Starting today, staff at Nottingham University, are also set to strike for 67 days this autumn, amid plans to restructure departments and potentially close courses.

In Scotland, the universities of Dundee, Glasgow Caledonian and Heriot-Watt have also voted to strike, as have the universities of Essex, Exeter and Sussex in England.

Lopa Leach, professor of vascular biology and former president of Nottingham’s UCU branch, told the Guardian: “The word is carnage, it is carnage what they are doing now – at the local level and also at the national, senior management level in the UK. Why are they thinking about the destruction of higher education?”