UCU negotiators’ statement on the second UCEA offer

26 January 2023

On 25 January, the university employers’ representatives UCEA presented us with their revised pay offer for 2023–24 [statement on first offer can be found here]. They have not made any offer to improve their imposed offer for 2022–23.

The pay offer

The new offer has a similar structure to their first offer, but with different salary bands. For UCU members, the main difference is that of an increase from 4% to 5% for those earning over salary point 43. It is also a small improvement for those on grade points up to 25.

• Points 3–5–8%
• Points 6–14–7%
• Points 15–25–6%
• Points 26–51–5%

The intention of UCEA in making this offer is to resolve both the 2022–23 and a future 2023–24 pay dispute. It is therefore a two-year offer, and must be viewed as such.

There will be a similar backdated payment to February as part of this offer. We also expect employers to honour the 5% for staff on points above 51 including Professors.

With a small number of exceptions for starting Research Assistants or Teaching Assistants and Demonstrators, all UCU members would be expected to be on points 26 and above.

Viewed as a two-year offer it represents approximately 8% over the two years in cash terms.

What it means for members’ pay

We now turn to how this offer measures up in real terms against inflation. In the analysis below we have used updated inflation figures from the ONS for December 2022 and assumed that inflation does not fall.

For UCU members on point 26 and above, the UCEA offer represents a pay cut of 15% against the Retail Price Index (RPI). This can be thought of as a loss of pay equivalent to 55 calendar days every year (nearly 8 weeks). For those in the 15 to 25 salary point range, the pay cut is 14%, or 51 unpaid days a year.

The smallest pay cut is 8% for the very lowest paid (one month). Note that due to the sliding scale of last year’s offer for the lowest paid, we have taken the mean percentage increase for 2022–23 across lower bands.

As previously, we are using RPI because this is the trade unions’ agreed inflation rate. Were one to use a different inflation measure, we might see a slightly lower pay cut, but even using the employers’ preferred CPI measure, this offer still represents a cut in pay of almost 11% (40 days) for members on points 26 upwards.

Members’ pension contributions are based on salary, so a real-terms cut in pay translates into a cut in future pension accrual.

Perhaps the most telling statistic is this. The cumulative pay cut from 2009 to 2023 is so large it outpaces incremental progression over the same period. Even were a staff member incremented every single year over that period (something that never happens in practice), in August 2023 they can expect to be paid no more than 96% of their starting salary against RPI.

The affordability of a larger increase

We believe that the employers can afford to pay staff more.

UCEA themselves say that surpluses in the sector exceed £1bn. Publicly-available HESA data shows that income outstripped total expenditure by 2.5% over the seven years up to 2021, whereas only 55% of that expenditure was allocated to staff costs. An additional 4.5% each year is obviously affordable.

Colleagues will also know that during the Covid emergency, many university employers took emergency steps to prioritise staff costs over capital expenditure. We believe that they can and should do the same in the cost of living crisis.