This is a live page of all the redundancies, restructures, reorganisations, and closures taking place across the UK Higher Education (UKHE) sector at the moment. Solidarity to all. This sector is vital to the country’s future and the vandalism to it unconscionable.

The universities on this list are the ones with announced and confirmed redundancies as well as restructures and interventions that drastically transform the working and learning conditions in their institution. More are rumoured about, and even more have been shrinking staff by not renewing fixed-term contracts or reducing hours of fractional contracts, or are not implementing agreed pay rises. These cuts are not as visible but are equally impactful, reducing programmes, stretching remaining staff, failing to have any flexibility when a member of staff falls out and the ensuing delays of support for students, etc.

University managers should be standing up for the sector and lobby for meaningful change to the funding model. Instead, in many places, staff is made to take industrial action to try to protect jobs and what universities are. In places like Sheffield, managers event try to intimidate staff out of speaking up by imposing punitive deductions — more on that legal grey area here.

Tag us on socials (@qm_ucu), comment below, or email the social media team if you know of any others we should add — ideally include a link to reliable information. Please do not email the coordinator address, those are other teams in the branch.

Most recent updates

(in the past fortnight, approximately; last updated 20 November 2025)

  • Birmingham is making redundancies in Biosciences
  • Edinburgh is moving toward compulsory redundancies
  • Essex is shutting their Southend campus and planning to make 400 people redundant
  • Leicester announces 150 redundancies
  • Northumbria is trying to move staff to a worse pension
  • Nottingham is planning further drastic restructuring of colleges and schools, with projected job losses close to the loss in phase one of 350 colleagues. On 6 November they announced they would suspend all languages and music courses from 10 November, with similar drastic interventions in Agriculture, Food Science, Food and Nutrition, Microbiology, Plant Biology, American Studies, Child and Mental Health Nursing, Health Promotion and Public Health.
  • Sheffield is trying to intimidate staff out of taking action by imposing punitive deductions
  • Southampton announced voluntary severance and ‘shape & size’ project.
  • Strathclyde is looking for £35 in savings in their recurrent costs
  • Swansea is looking for £25 million in savings
  • Worcester has set up a subsidiary on which staff is employed on worse contracts and pension

Current redundancy & Restructure programmes

  1. Aberdeen, where management in November 2023 announced they would fold Modern Languages. The public response has been immense, compiled here by Aberdeen ucu. In March, they announced compulsory redundancies would be off the table after all. The university is looking for £12 million for the current academic year though it is unclear whether this is a deficit or a shortfall against projected cash generation. In May 2025, they announced they are offering voluntary severance and enhanced retirement in a subsection of disciplines, looking at closing ‘less popular’ courses. In July 2025, they extended the voluntary redundancies to find £5.5 million more by the new academic year.
  2. Aberystwyth is looking to cut 200 jobs searching for £15 million. This would reduce staff by 8-11 percent. Previously, the university announced they would axe the entire postgraduate teaching course (PGCE).
  3. Anglia Ruskin University is going through a Size & Shape programme in the Summer of 2025, looking to save £4.3 million. This programme could potentially affect around 80 full time equivalent roles. An initial Voluntary Severance Scheme closed in June.
  4. Aston University put 60 academics in the college of engineering and physical sciences at risk of redundancy. There is a Voluntary Severance Scheme open for the entire university.
  5. Bangor opened a voluntary severance scheme in autumn 2024. In previous years, Bangor has been cutting posts and programmes, including its entire Chemistry department. Bangor University’s International College is cutting in administrative staff and permanent tutors. Bangor University International College is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Oxford International Education Group (OIEG), a private provider that operates under Bangor University’s brand identity. In February 2025, Bangor announced they were looking to cut 200 members of staff in search of £15 million savings. By May 2025, the number was reduced to 78, particularly affecting Psychology, and History, Law and Social Sciences.
  6. Bedfordshire restructured in the summer of 2023 and all but closed Performing Arts Cluster (Acting BA, Dance & Professional Practice BA and Performing Arts BA), made redundant 8 members of staff in Media, and reduced the School of arts and Creative Industries dramatically. In Spring 2024, they again opened a Voluntary Severance Scheme for all staff. By March 2025, it was announced the university was looking to cut 240 jobs with Professional Services particularly affected, and 96 had left via Voluntary Redundancy by 1 August.
  7. Birkbeck tried to cut 140 jobs in 2022 against a lot of pushback as this would destroy a unique institution with evening classes set up precisely to make higher education inclusive. They have since had to absorb further restructures. And in 2024, they are again ‘streamlining’ programmes as well as cutting hours from staff on Teaching & Scholarship contracts.
  8. Birmingham launched a voluntary severance scheme in October 2024. They’re aiming to lose 300-400 ‘roles’. This comes on top of the university being investigated by the Health & Safety Executive over excessive workloads and the accompanying stress and mental health issues. In October 2025, the university started a process of redundancies in Biosciences.
  9. Birmingham City offered a Mutually Agreed Resignation Scheme to all staff in February 2025 — with an email about the VC’s bold new vision and how those who don’t buy into it should leave… 200-250 colleagues took up the offer and left. The university has put 342 members of staff at risk of redundancy and is cutting drastically in student support. Sign the petition here.
  10. Bolton has gone through two ‘Mutually Agreed Release Schemes’. MARS1 announced before Christmas 2023, around 40 left. In July 2024, a email revealed more talk about redundancies. The VC proudly announced the Office for Students agreed to a consultation on a name-change though…
  11. The Arts University Bournemouth has opened a voluntary severance scheme. The terms of the scheme won’t achieve the cost saving aims, according to the joint campus unions’ calculations. By February 2025, management refused to rule out compulsory redundancies. This was set at 75 compulsory redundancies in May 2025.
  12. Bournemouth University has opened a voluntary severance scheme and compulsory redundancies are on the table. The university is also proposing to cut standard research hours allocation by 50% for all staff. They’re looking for £15 million which is a shortfall against projections. In March 2025, they closed multiple programmes for registration, including English, Law-and-Politics, Politics, Archaeology and Anthropology, Environmental Science, etc. They are looking to cut 200 FTE and to reduce staff research from 400 hours a year to 150, or a reduction by 60%.
  13. Bradford is cutting staff to find £10 million. In October 2024, their Chief Financial Officer confirmed that compulsory redundancies are on the table. By March 2025, management was looking to cut 200 posts, including in chemistry and film. The cut would be about 20% of its workforce. Other measures include closing courses and merging departments. The local UCU branch had postponed a strike to enable further negotiations, but by July 2025, that led nowhere, as management refused further extension of Voluntary Redundancy programmes and moved towards compulsory redundancies.
  14. Brighton have been under restructure since 2023. Their senior management tried to make 130 members of staff redundant on 4 May 2023. They reached 100 days in their strike. In early January 2024, they were treated to another email announcing a voluntary severance scheme. And they ended the year with another VSS, targeted this time at two schools: Art & Media and Humanities & Social Sciences.
  15. Bristol planned job cuts in the Centre for Academic Language and Development (CALD) in March 2025. See this letter outlining the importance of the centre (to actually support international students whose fees pay for so much of the institution…), and questioning the inconvertibility of solely job cuts as a ‘solution’. In June, 45 colleagues remain at risk of redundancy in CALD, and if proposals continue unchanged that’ll lead to loss of at least 20 jobs, probably more given number of colleagues on fractional contracts etc. Some of the proposed redundancies would result in the end of provision in that particular language — such as in Czech. By September 2025, the branch had successfully staved off compulsory redundancies, though departments were still losing valued colleagues through voluntary redundancy.
  16. Brunel has opened a voluntary severance scheme. In October 2024, management announced a ‘resizing programme‘. The plan is for 130 FT academic positions to be made redundant, i.e. 14% reduction in academic staffing levels. In addition to the 130 academic jobs to be shed, 79 professional services jobs have been put at risk in the first of two waves of ‘organisational restructuring’ of professional services.  See https://brunel.web.ucu.org.uk/ for details and some truly excellent campaigning materials. By September 2025, Brunel announced yet another round of compulsory redundancies, despite already losing 20% of staff. Sign the petition in support of staff here.
  17. Canterbury Christ Church is getting ready to ‘shrink staff’ and have opened a Voluntary Severance Scheme. English Literature, languages, linguistics, and a number of arts and creative industries courses are closing. In November 2024, CCCU management declared they need to save £20 million using their Transformation Programme, before fiscal year end in July 2025. They say 80% of that savings will need to come from letting go of staff. If the average saved per staff member was 50,000, that would be 320 FTE to save £16million. Or: about *one in five* staff members to go.
  18. Cardiff‘s VC wrote to all staff announcing a £35 million deficit; voluntary severance isn’t excluded, but the university is also looking at other ways of generating income. Previously, the university already announced it was planning to cut Ancient Languages. You can sign the petition against that here. In October 2024, the VC refused to rule out compulsory redundancies. Their third voluntary severance scheme will close in January 2025. In January 2025, they announced they are seeking to lose 400 colleagues. By May, in the light of scrutiny by politicians and pressure from the local branch with a strike mandate, they removed the threat of compulsory redundancies.
  19. Cardiff Metropolitan University has opened a Voluntary Severance Scheme. By April 2025, they moved on to compulsory redundancies.
  20. Chichester cut ruthlessly into their humanities, including ending the Master by Research in the history of Africa and the African diaspora — terminating the contract of the first British person of African heritage to become a professor in history in the UK. Compulsory redundancies have reduced research and education.
  21. Chester has opened a Voluntary Severance Scheme again. This is after they went through a gruelling restructure in 2021, putting 86 posts on the line. In March 2024 they announced they would close the Shrewsbury university campus.
  22. The University for the Creative Arts ran a Mutually Agreed Resignation Scheme (MARS) from Dec 24 to Jan 25 with approx 50 people accepted under the voluntary scheme. In Spring 2025, management is looking to review Professional Services alongside changes to the academic structure. The proposals include a reduction of headcount by one third, and downgrading many of the remaining roles. This is part of a £9.8m saving they are looking to make by 31 July 2025.
  23. Cumbria is implementing with redundancies even though the article that was put out by their senior management acknowledges they made their financial targets and have grown by 30%
  24. Coventry, who have to make £100 million in savings. There is a BBC report and a discussion in University World News. Every department has been hit. In December 2024, the university announced drastic cuts and a transformation of what they are as an institution. All modern languages have all but disappeared, and by 2027 there will be no English language teaching either. In just one of the four colleagues they’re slashing 39 posts wholesale. Many more are forced onto fire-and-rehire, having to reapply for jobs but via a subsidiary, with much higher teaching load, and a much worse pension scheme (from TPS to AVIVA, and so with much lower employer contributions). The subsidiary, Coventry University Group, also doesn’t recognise the University and College Union, so staff’s union membership (and protection) is on the line.
  25. The University for the Creative Arts closed their campus in Rochester and moved to colleges in Surrey. This move resulted in redundancies and programme closures. The building in Rochester is now possibly being turned into flats. In 2025, Professional Services underwent drastic cuts, a second round of redundancies has targeted the Epsom campus.
  26. Cranfield is undergoing a redundancy programme. Phase 1 ended on 31st July resulting in three compulsory redundancies , 43 voluntary redundancies and c.100 staff who are leaving under MARS (Mutually Agreed Resignation Scheme). Phase 2 began on 4th August 2025 and 195 further posts have been identified for redundancy, initially voluntary (under a less beneficial scheme to that offered in Phase 1), which will move to Compulsory (on statutory redundancy terms) should insufficient numbers agree to leave voluntarily. The university is currently going through a restructure programme and it is extremely likely that further job cuts will be announced in the new year.
  27. De Montfort University asked colleagues to take voluntary redundancy in 2024 and are not ruling out redundancy. In May 2025, they announced trying to lose 80 colleagues. In previous years, they already tried to get rid of 58 colleagues — to public outrage in the petition against it. The branch’s analysis is forensic and a helpful template to draw inspiration from. UCU national helped the industrial action. By June 2025, it was clear the university was trying to move colleagues on new contracts with their subsidiary firm, with worse pay and conditions. The branch wrote up an excellent summary of the mismanagement and lack of accountability that lead to this.
  28. At Derby, management opened an ‘Enhanced Resignation Scheme’ in 2024. This comes after previous voluntary severance schemes in 2019 and in 2022, while the university marked income increase and a decrease in staff cost. In late Autumn 2024, they had a VS scheme aimed at Research Profs and Associate Profs. By April 2025, the university considered compulsory redundancies targeting half of its senior academics, plans which were being implemented in May 2025. In June 2025, the announced the merger of their four colleges into two, with the express note that this would affect leadership roles and professional service coverage. By October 2025, they announced they were looking for 200 redundancies.
  29. Dundee claimed job loses were ‘inevitable’ in November 2024, having already implemented hiring freezes and reducing operational spending. Staff was warned the university could close within two years unless drastic savings were made. This includes the removal of the budget to pay post-graduate researchers for teaching — taking away income and experience from early career colleagues and pushing even more work onto permanent staff. They still could spend thousands of pounds on business class flights and five-star hotels for their VC and a member of staff though. In March 2025, their interim VC announced they were trying to cut 632 jobs, on top of the posts already lost through hiring freeze. Together, that amounts to a quarter of all staff. By May 2025, in the face of scrutiny by politicians and push back from the local branch with a mandate for industrial action, that number got halved.
  30. Durham had a Voluntary Severance Scheme open between November 2023 and February 2024. After the voluntary severance scheme wrapped up, insufficiently many people have applied, so the employer has decided to run it again. The scheme opened again 30 September 2024 which closed on 30 October 2024. In January 2025, they announced they wanted to get rid of 200 (!!) non-academic colleagues, in pursuit of which they opened a voluntary severance scheme. Read the Durham UCU branch statement, as well as message to members. Compulsory redundancies haven’t been ruled out, so the branch is getting ready to challenge this with industrial action.
  31. Edge Hill University announced redundancies in the Creative Arts department, including compulsory redundancies. You can sign the petition challenging these cuts. In early February 2025, they announced they’re seeking to make another £10 million in saving through further staffing reductions *by July 2025*, with a voluntary severance scheme as well as calls for staff to reduce their contract hours. By April 2025, they lost hundreds of colleagues through voluntary severance and in the summer pushed through compulsory redundancies.
  32. Edinburgh announced job cuts in November 2024. In January 2025, they opened a voluntary severance scheme, which they extended in February 2025. And by the end of February 2025, they announced they were looking for £140 million (!!) or 10% of their of their annual turnover in savings. These cuts would be made based on the education portfolio. By August 2025, it was clear about 350 colleagues had departed on the voluntary severance scheme, or about £24 million in savings. But the university continues to look for cuts, putting particular pressure on senior colleagues to depart. In October 2025, they started compulsory redundancies, closing its Institute for Academic Development.
  33. In August 2025, Edinburgh Napier announced it was looking to cut 70 jobs.
  34. In the Spring of 2024, Essex was planning to force academics on a 45-week teaching programme, which would essentially destroy the idea of university as no research could take place. They’re reneging on the (poor) pay increase negotiated nationally as well as on staff promotions to find £14m to deal with a shortfall, not deficit. In November 2024, they announced seeking to lose 200 members of staff to find £29 million savings, and changed the tone from ‘no department in particular is at risk’ to ‘no discipline is at risk’. in December 2025, the university announced they were planning to shut their Southend campus and make 400 people redundant.
  35. The University of Exeter has opened a Voluntary Severance Scheme (or ‘The Exeter Release Scheme‘ (TERS) as they call it…). By May 2025, they declared that this would be the last ‘generous’ scheme (3 weeks of pay for each year of service…) and even used comparisons with pre-2020 ‘release schemes’ to hammer home the message.
  36. Falmouth reopened its voluntary severance scheme again in Spring 2025.
  37. Glasgow put 80 staff members in the Social and Public Health Sciences Unit in at risk of redundancy in November 2024 as a result of funding withdrawal by MRC and the Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office. After a brief dispute in March 2025, the university improved its VS offer for the unit, guaranteed it for all staff at risk of redundancy, and instead is now developing a trial with the branch to move some research staff onto open-ended contracts.
  38. Glasgow Caledonian opened a ‘Mutual Severance Scheme‘ on 4 March 2024, and re-opened it in June 2024. In October 2025, it was reopened yet again (running 2 October – 28 November). They’re ‘teaching out’ (i.e.: ending) several courses such as Forensic Investigation. This is against the background of GCU recently undergoing an audit by UK Visa & Immigration which led to the university being placed on an action plan which includes pausing recruitment on many courses.
  39. Gloucestershire is discussing voluntary severance
  40. Goldsmiths has been going through rough restructuring for the past few years. And by 2024 they were there again. Management has claimed a £13.1m shortfall from budget (not deficit!). They’ve already recovered £10.1 through savings in recurrent costs through VSS, post deletions and cuts to research, and Goldsmiths has healthy cash reserves. The proposed cut of 130 posts would amount to 25% of staff. The local branch has set up a support fund to enable them challenging this; and they are sharing helpful resources. In the summer of 2024, Goldsmiths did indeed push through redundancies, including losing convenors of key and unique masters programmes. By June 2025, they once again opened another voluntary severance scheme.
  41. Greenwich announced restructures in April 2025, on top of savings throughout the year. The proposed restructures will affect posts in the faculties, and staffing levels are being reviewed. By May 2025, the review of staffing levels resulted in plans to cut a quarter of their academic workforce, or 300 posts.
  42. Heriot-Watt has opened a voluntary redundancy scheme aimed at senior grades (Assoc Prof and Professor) in (and currently only in) the School of Social Sciences. “Alternatives” are being offered, including reductions to working hours, unpaid career breaks for senior grades, and secondments to the Dubai campus.
  43. The University of Hertfordshire went through a redundancy process for several schools in 2024, including: 6 posts in Law, 5 posts in Creative Arts, and up to 16 posts in Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, which all went through. In June 2025, the School of Creative Arts announced a consultation to make another seven members of staff (6 academic and 1 professional) compulsorily redundant.
  44. University of the Highlands and Islands has had multiple Voluntary Severance Schemes, redundancy rounds, and course closures affecting the constituent colleges — including closing entire campuses which served rural communities. Voluntary severance has been taken up with compulsory redundancies expected to follow over the summer.
  45. Huddersfield put 100 jobs at risk in the umpteenth iteration of redundancy processes. In Spring 2024, management announced they were seeking 12% cut in staff (or 200 posts), all compulsory redundancies, after the waves of voluntary severance. This lead to the loss of the national nuclear research centre. Their management had offered £5000 one-off payment to those who took redundancy, to encourage uptake. In early July they tried to renege on that agreement.
  46. Hull opened a Voluntary Severance Scheme in Spring 2024, through which about 100 members of staff left. In June 2024, the university announced even more staff redundancies, seeking another staff reduction of nearly 150. In August 2024, the university confirmed it would close the chemistry department because it does not deem the courses financially sustainable — read this blogpost articulating the vast ripple effect of this closure. In Autumn 2024, Hull was looking at a reduction of 1 in 10 in academic staff, and convened compulsory redundancy panels. Colleagues were made to leave in December 2024. Merely four months later, in April 2025, they opened the second Voluntary Severance Scheme.
  47. In May 2024, Keele opened a voluntary redundancy scheme, inviting 2,300 staff members. Redundancy agreements will be statutory minimum only. By December 2024, they entered a new, more vicious rounds of cuts, this time targeted at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and including compulsory redundancies. £2.25m will be saved from academic staff posts, equating to the loss of 25-29 academic posts, 20-24 of which will be from the Humanities and Social Sciences. In December 2024, they announced another Voluntary Severance Scheme, which would be moved to compulsory redundancies if there wasn’t a big enough uptake. 100 colleagues spent their Christmas worrying for their jobs as they were at risk to be one of the 30-35 posts to be culled. The schools in the humanities and social sciences are most targeted but st risk are also Keele Business School and Allied Health Professions and Pharmacy. By March 2025, Keele moved to compulsory redundancies for first time in the history of the university. Fifty colleagues have been put at risk with 9 expected to be forced out. In May 2025, they put 150 jobs at risk.
  48. Kent had a threat of compulsory redundancies, which some voluntary departures seemed to have averted, and then the compulsory redundancies came back. Since February 2024, they’ve got a portfolio of what has to go. By late March 2024, the university announced cutting some of the key departments in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, including Anthropology, Art History, Health & Social Care, Journalism, Music & Audio Technology, Philosophy/Religious Studies, Human Biology and Behaviour and the MSc in Ethnobotany. Kent is axing not only jobs (58 staff are at risk of redundancy), but entire programmes and departments. Kent also closed its quarter-century-old Brussels campus at short notice, giving staff no more notice than students, and not putting in place continuation measures for students — whose visas and life circumstances would allow moving to the UK. Staff face compulsory redundancy. Though in January 2025, the university opened yet another voluntary severance scheme, with a three-week turnover.
  49. In 2024, Kingston put its world-renowned Philosophy department ‘under review’ by March 2025, they announced they would axe it. This comes after the university axed subjects that had been excelling in research for years, including Politics, International Relations, Human Rights, History, etc. in 2021-22. The local branch kept a record here. There have been voluntary severance schemes before, including in 2019. In February 2025, amid a search for £20 million in savings, the VC did not exclude compulsory redundancies. They seem to be pushing through redundancies at breakneck speed, talking about 90 days for redundancies of 20-99 job losses. See the response from the branch here, which is an excellent distillation of the way managers are running roughshod over legal and ethical obligations, seemingly in the hope that nobody has the energy to challenge this if they do it fast enough.
  50. In the Spring of 2024, Lancaster terminated a number of fractional contracts. In October 2024, they opened a voluntary severance scheme. On 2 December 2024, all staff received an email declaring “for the University to be sustainable at the level of student recruitment we saw in 2024, current estimates show that we need to reduce the staff size by about 10-15% of where we are now – which translates to an approximate reduction of 400 full-time equivalent staff (i.e. staff across all categories) over the next two years, given our adjusted financial forecasts.” By June 2025, that number of 400FTE to be lost in the next year was reaffirmed, though the university already lost 50 colleagues to Voluntary Severance. They’re seeking to save £30 million. Sign the petition against these drastic cuts here.
  51. The University of Central Lancashire is facing a deficit of £25 million and is seeking to make 5% of its staff redundant. They have opened a Voluntary Severance Scheme and is looking to cut 165 posts. 100 people left voluntarily, but in June 2024, management issued a further notice threatening up to 157 post, including compulsory redundancies. This comes after multiple restructures in the last few years, in 201920212023, and now 2024. In November 2024, they considered removing French, Spanish, German, Russian, TESOL (Teaching of English to speakers of other languages), Philosophy, Religion, Politics, International Relations and Chemistry. By May 2025, they were looking for a further cut of 58 posts, inviting voluntary redundancies and partial redundancies.
  52. Leeds Beckett opened a Voluntary Severance Scheme.
  53. Leeds Trinity opened a Voluntary Severance Scheme in Autumn 2024.
  54. Leicester has opened up a voluntary severance scheme in autumn 2024. In June 2025, they considered closing the departments of Geography, Geology, and the Environment, Chemistry, and Education, as well as degree programmes in Modern Languages and Film Studies. In October 2025, the university put 150 jobs at risk and considered closing courses. This is after they went through a gruesome and ideologically-driven restructure in recent years. Those who got made redundant have recently won their employment tribunals. The employment tribunal judge’s ruling is available here. Several of those dismissed have written about their experiences in a new book Shaping for Mediocrity: The Cancellation of Critical Thinking at Our Universities (published August 2024).
  55. Lincoln is closing their language department, and has announced a voluntary severance scheme. They are looking to make 220 redundancies — about one tenth of all staff. Up to half may come from the initial VSS, but over 100 jobs will be scratched through either further schemes or compulsory redundancies. The sum of savings sought for keeps changing: it started at 20% of budget, which became £20 million, and then £30 million. Management has by now announced they already made savings of £24 million through VSS and other cost cutting measures but is not ruling out compulsory redundancies. In March 2025 they opened another Voluntary Severance Scheme. By April 2025, the university opened another “Mutually Agreed Resignation Scheme” and refused to rule out compulsory redundancies in 2025.
  56. Liverpool opened a Voluntary Leavers Scheme in February 2025.
  57. Liverpool Hope had a Voluntary Severance Scheme open over Christmas 2023 for staff on Grade 7 and above — i.e.: getting rid of securely-employed and adequately-remunerated teaching & research posts. In May 2024, they closed programmes because they were ‘underrecruiting’. In May 2025, they announced 39 potential redundancies of which 23 are in the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences, 11 are in the Faculty of Creative Arts and Humanities, and 5 are in the Faculty of Human and Digital Sciences. This letter helpfully and clearly outlines why these cuts are harmful, and what the lead-up to job cuts has been over the past few years. This updated letter shares a detailed overview of the university’s financial situation. Everyone can sign this petition.
  58. Loughborough opened a voluntary severance scheme in Autumn 2024. In July 2025, Loughborough University Research and Innovation Office started consulting on restructuring its funding application support and is proposing to make half the current Research Development Managers redundant. This is despite a recent philanthropic donation being received and dedicated to opening a new Research Academy.
  59. St Mary’s University Twickenham has opened a Mutual Resignation Scheme at the end of May 2024.
  60. Middlesex has cut into arts in the first instance, broadening to devastating the entire research community. They closed the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture with the loss of 4 jobs, proposed removing the Interpretation & Translation academic area with the loss of 6 academic posts. Other smaller units have been closed one or two at a time, gradually escalating. While the Theatre Arts department still technically exists, all 13 members of staff in the department were put at risk of redundancy in the restructure. After repeated failures to properly consult with the UCU branch and staff affected throughout the process, just two of these staff have retained their jobs. Before this restructure was fully completed Middlesex University announced, without giving prior notice to the unions, that they are embarking on a further wide-scale restructure across the university where 181 jobs are now being ‘deleted’, taking the total to over 200+ potential job losses. Additionally, management has activated previously defeated plans to close the on site nursery which will impact both staff and students. In April 2025, they announced a further £20 million cuts in operational costs in Professional Services by the Summer.
  61. Newcastle had a voluntary severance scheme across all faculties without targets or numbers in Spring 2024. In September 2024, the Newcastle VC announced they were facing a £35 million shortfall and therefore would resort to hiring freezes, freeze current contracts, and revise promotions and annual pay awards. A second voluntary severance scheme was opened aimed only at academics and management didn’t rule out compulsory redundancies. Promotion processes were halted for 2024 with no guarantee they would be resumed the next. By January 2025, the university announced they were seeking to make 300 FTE redundancies. In June 2025, the branch secured a commitment of no compulsory redundancies this year and a no job losses in the academic year 2025-26 (when 150 jobs were threatened).
  62. Northampton has been going through multiple cost savings to a non-insubstantial degree because of disastrous financial decision-making by management.
    • In 2024, the university sought £19.3 million savings in 2024, and did so through repeated voluntary severance schemes — one open to 500 colleagues in June 2024 to which only 97 had applied, another voluntary severance scheme in October 2024.
    • Mere weeks later, they announced they would consider cutting programmes — including programmes students are on.
    • In November 2024, over 170 staff were placed at risk of redundancy. UON UCU significantly mitigated the threat of redundancy, influencing the University to implement alternative proposals which saved some programmes from closure, which in turn limited the number of compulsory redundancies notices served to less than 5. The branch put out this statement following the conclusion of the redundancy consultation.
    • In February 2025 a further 100 staff were placed at risk of redundancy. Although it would appear all staff have secured new roles at the University during the consultation process, some staff have been TUPE transferred to the University of Northampton subsidiary firm on less favourable terms, such as loss of access to the LGPS.
    • One of the core reasons the University of Northampton is in financial trouble is reckless decisions made by the previous Vice Chancellor. The former leadership team secured a £231.5 million bond  through the UK Guarantee Scheme and Public Works Loan  Board to build a new campus. The bond was agreed because the University had low unrestricted reserves as a percentage of total income. The previous VC reassured University governors and the University, as the bond is underwritten by HM Treasury, the Government would repay the loan should the University be unable to do so.
    • According to HESA data from 2023-24, the University of Northampton is the most indebted established university in England in terms of its external borrowing as a proportion of its total income. A high percentage of external borrowing and low cash reserve has led to the University being extremely susceptible to reducing home and international student numbers.
    • UON UCU and UNISON wrote an open letter to Northamptonshire MPs asking them to help the University renegotiate the terms of the bond in December 2024.  Although the Northampton South MP spoke favourably about the University’s economic impact in parliament, to our knowledge no discussions have been made with HM Treasury to facilitate the renegotiation of the bond.
  63. Northumbria is slashing staffing budget to find £12.5 million. Their ucu branch shared a petition to fight compulsory redundancies. They achieved that at the end of March: compulsory redundancies were ruled out thanks to the local branch’s efforts and solidarity from students and from across the country. But in November 2024, their management announced they would stop all business-and-language courses with immediate effect. In November 2025, the university put staff before an ultimatum: cuts to pay or cuts to pensions, trying to move them to a worse pension scheme.
  64. Nottingham has been going through multiple phases of overlapping cuts.
    • The university opened a Mutually Agreed Resignation Scheme (MARS) in June 2024, following hiring freezes, cuts in non-pay budgets, and refusal to renew 500 fixed-term contracts. By April 2025, they were looking to cut 250 jobs, and ended up with 293 job cuts.
    • In October 2025, Nottingham launched “Future Nottingham Phase 2” on top of Phase 1 that wasn’t wound up yet. Phase 2 reorganises the current faculties into 3 ‘colleges’ and reduces the number of schools from 26 to 10. The University plans to remove perceived duplication of subject areas for teaching and research and to disengage from areas which other institutions do better (unclear by what metric…). Extensive job losses of academics and technicians are expected with numbers similar to the loss of hundreds of support staff (c350) seen for Phase 1.
    • The entire restructuring is to be in place by September 2026.
    • The restructuring is leading to the loss of schools and programmes. On 6 November 2025, the university announced suspending all language and music courses from 10 November onwards. The School of Biosciences will effectively cease to exist as an entity as the university is planning to close Agriculture, Food Science, Food and Nutrition, Microbiology and Plant Biology. Remaining courses will slot into other schools in the proposed restructuring. Other affected courses include: American Studies, Child and Mental Health Nursing, Health Promotion and Public Health.
  65. Open University had a voluntary severance scheme in 2024 which targeted Associate Lecturers as well as staff in Professional Services. They opened another one in 2025.
  66. Oxford Brookes on 15 November 2023 proposed folding their music department. Their branch outlines the communication here. In the first round in November, 20 people left through voluntary severance, and in the second round about 10 people left. In March 2024, they avoided many compulsory redundancies, though still not in music. In April 2024, another Voluntary Severance Scheme was announced, sent to over 800 members of staff. In the 2023/24 HESA financial data, the university was one of the most indebted established universities in the country (behind only the University of Northampton and the University of Surrey) in terms of its external borrowing as a proportion of its total income due to loans to cover new buildings.
  67. The Arts University Plymouth has gone through voluntary redundancies and now compulsory ones.
  68. Plymouth announced a round of cuts that will affect the Business School, Institute of Education, the Humanities (History, Art History, English, Politics), Engineering, Mathematics, Nursing and Medicine, and Partnerships. They started with a voluntary scheme in May 2024 with a planned move to compulsory in July. The university previously spent £27 million in severance payment in four years from 2016-17 to 2019-20. In 2024, they spent nearly 3 million in redundancy payment. They lost 91 colleagues but made a £24 million surplus in the financial year 2023-24. In May 2025, the university announced they were looking for a further 200 job losses.
  69. University of St Mark & St John in Plymouth (Plymouth Marjon) proposed 27FTE redundancies in late November 2023. Roughly 24 FTE have left by Spring 2024.
  70. Portsmouth has put 400 members of staff at risk. The university is planning to make 50 redundancies among full time academic roles but and the risk further affects staff in all roles; this elimination of a large numbers jobs in one swoop will effect a huge effect on the city. In July 2024, it was also announced that the university is planning to stop new staff from being able to access the Teachers Pension Scheme, in effect creating a ‘two-tier’ workforce. The university just made a £250m investment in estates though.
  71. At QMUL, 60 colleagues already left via a Voluntary Severance Scheme which ran 6 March – 8 April 2024. Separately, there is a consultation about Professional Service staff running until 10 July, while the governing board is expected/feared on 11 July to sign off on the merger of two Schools, the School of English & Drama, and the School of Languages, Linguistics, and Film. In February 2025, management started to get linemanagers to have one-on-one chats with colleagues in Professional Services to ‘encourage’ them to take voluntary severance (while heavily implying their post wouldn’t exist soon anyway…). They’re trying to cut 25% (!!) of all PS staff. On 12 March 2025, management opened a voluntary severance scheme for all PS colleagues and for academics in targeted Schools: School of Mathematical Sciences (SMS), School of Physical and Chemical Sciences (SPCS), Institute of Dentistry (IoD), Institute of Health Science Education (IHSE), William Harvey Research Institute (WHRI), School of Geography, School of History, School of the Arts (the school created by the merger of the Schools of English & Drama and the School of Languages, Linguistics, and Film in the Summer of 2024). By 25 April, the redundancy counter was at 59, because of restructures in ITS, in the Education team in Science & Engineering, and in the PGR team in Humanities & Social Sciences. This number are actual job losses, and does not take into account voluntary severance numbers, the non-renewal of fixed-term contracts, and the failure to fill vacant posts. It is also before the impact of the university-side Professional Service restructure is clear, as well as the impact of the merger of academic Schools. We keep track of all info and news on this webpage.
  72. Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh opened a Voluntary Exit Scheme in March 2024. by September 2025, they were on their second round. This time, there was also pressure to move to reduced hours for staff.
  73. In October 2024, Queen’s University Belfast announced it is seeking to cut 270 posts. Management claims it will do so via voluntary severance scheme, despite that being 5% of its workforce and VSS is unlikely to achieve that. They have not provided the unions with the legally required information. They opened the VSS on 3 February 2025 and let it run for only ten days, closing on 14 February.
  74. Reading announced plans to shut down Chemistry, based on supposed underperformance in the National Student Survey and the Research Excellence Framework — both rather spuriously interpreted. By December 2024, and thanks to a lot of public outcry about the harm this closure would cause, the department itself would be saved, but there are still proposed cuts to academic staff. In January 2025, Reading opened a targeted Voluntary Severance Scheme based on their calculation of the student-staff ratio. English language, English literature, Maths, Statistics, Biomedical engineering, Environment, Art, Construction Management and Engineering are all targeted.
  75. Robert Gordon University opened a voluntary severance scheme for qualifying staff across the university. 130 colleagues left through this scheme. In November 2024, the university announced making a further 135 post redundant. “The university said staff at risk would be offered voluntary redundancy and it hoped the need for compulsory redundancies would be limited.” — so one does wonder how ‘voluntary’ these redundancies are… In March 2025, the Principal emailed all staff to say the VSS hadn’t been sufficient and there would be a “maximum of 60 compulsory redundancies”. That is on top of the colleagues lost to more voluntary practices (their staff statistics page shows that between April 2024 and January 2025, they reduced their staff body count from 1728 to 1445 already).
  76. Roehampton has once gain opened ‘Flexible Futures’ schemes to encourage staff to leave. This comes after they put half of their academics at risk in 2022. AdvanceHE was deeply involved in this slashing.
  77. The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama has opened a Voluntary Severance Scheme in autumn 2024, without clear indication how many posts management wants to see go, or in which departments.
  78. The Royal College of Art, London has begun a process of shrinkage. They are starting with a Voluntary Leavers Scheme for all permanent staff, and reopening the Voluntary Reduction in Hours Scheme for professional services and administration staff to make permanent changes to their working hours. The stated rationale for this is that the college has “more staff than we can afford on an ongoing basis” after realising this very year that their strategic growth plan is/was unsustainable.
  79. Royal Holloway announced a Voluntary Severance Scheme on 31 March 2025, without much prior discussion and only one Council meeting on 27 March to sign off on it. The local ucu branch has produced this useful set of clarifications and questions. This VSS comes after an already gruelling shrinking in 2019 and 2021.
  80. Sheffield has put 100 jobs in the nuclear research centre at risk of redundancy. In recent years, Sheffield has been forced through so many restructures it is unclear what management is trying to achieve. In October 2024, their management announced more than a £50 million shortfall — i.e.: missed targets of management’s budgets. Staff members across the university are made to feel the squeeze resulting from these unrealistic projections of never-ending-growth, as the university seeks to save £23 million through Voluntary Severance Scheme. Departments in range of severances include civil engineering, materials engineering, journalism, and many more. Professional service staff are taking a disproportionate hit through Voluntary Severance – IT services, Accommodation and Commercial Services, the English Language Teaching Centre, and all professional services staff in Schools and Faculties are in scope for the scheme. Staff have passed a No Confidence vote in the VC and the executive board, and yet the VC got a new contract… In December 2025, Sheffield management threatened punitive deductions, declaring they would deduct pay for those who do not reschedule the work they had withdrawn as part of a legal strike and for which they haven’t been paid.
  81. Sheffield Hallam is trying to appease banks, as reported in Times Higher Education. Mid-December 2023, they opened a Voluntary Severance Scheme. The local branch’s response to a briefing raised key questions. In March 2024, Hallam declared 120 staff faced redundancy. By April, that was 225 academic jobs up for axing, with up to 80 staff facing compulsory redundancy. In June 2024, the university announced a voluntary severance scheme for colleagues in Professional Services, seeking to cut 400 posts, or one in five of the professional service team.
  82. SOAS is firing-and-rehiring staff in their Foundation Programme.
  83. Southampton opened a voluntary severance scheme in November 2025, and coincided this with one of the ‘shape & size’ projects that have been imposed on universities across the country. This is after Southampton went through multiple consultations in 2017-18, with both voluntary severance and compulsory redundancies.
  84. London South Bank University is predicting a £24 million deficit and therefore putting 297 members of staff at risk of redundancy, or almost one in five of academics at the university. They’re proposing to merge the 8 Schools into 5 Colleges, continuing the blandification of UKHE.
  85. South Wales opened a voluntary severance scheme in March 2024 without articulating how much they have to save, how many people they want to leave, and whether the cost saving would go towards filling a deficit or a shortfall against target cash generation. In October 2024, they projected another £20 million shortfall, and didn’t rule out redundancies. In February 2025, the university is rumoured to £20 million in deficit and looking to cut staff and programmes and looking to cut even more staff and programmes.
  86. Staffordshire announced cutting 100 posts already in Autumn 2023. In September 2024, hundreds of jobs were ‘at risk’. By March 2024 Staffordshire had 70 redundancies of academic staff across most areas of the university. Many of these were via voluntary redundancy, others were forced closure including of two of the key research areas (in Archaeology and Bio Medical Science) with the loss of those teams. This was 10% of the academic staff. In January 2025 the university continues redundancies, 250 support staff have been at risk and there will be about 50 redundancies in February. This is 10% of the support staff, leaving areas such as timetabling and research administration virtually unresourced. In addition, the university has not yet implemented the Aug 2024 pay rise, and is outside of national pay bargaining again this year. Ten months on, in October 2025, the university announced yet another round of job cuts, 70 this time.
  87. Stirling has opened a voluntary severance scheme in June 2025, seeking to find £8 million savings in the next financial year.
  88. In November 2025, Strathclyde announced their were looking for £35 million in savings in their recurring costs, mere weeks after the departure of a Principal who had been in post for well over a decade.
  89. Suffolk is looking to cut 35 posts as well as not filling in vacancies in May 2025.
  90. Sunderland is seeking to close the unique National Glass Centre. In July 2024, management announced a restructure that would reduce five faculties to three. In September 2024, they sought to make 1 in 10 redundant, a literal decimation, possibly done before Christmas. Previously, they already closed the university language scheme in 2018, and the degree programmes in languages in 2021.
  91. Surrey already went through redundancies in 2019. That they’re back at the stage where they’ve opened a voluntary severance scheme shows how little redundancies solve the problem. This petition outlines the situation and urges a rethinking. The university is looking for £10 million but didn’t not outline how many posts they’re aiming to cut. Over Easter 2024, 130 staff took voluntary severance, and the university has announced 45 professional services and academic staff are at risk of redundancy. In June 2025, the university is trying to move Professional Service colleagues on new contracts with a subsidiary firm which they set up, and which moves them on worse pay and contracts. You can sign the petition against this harmful precedent here.
  92. In November 2024, Sussex announced they were looking to lose 300 colleagues via voluntary severance scheme, i.e.: roughly 12% of the full time work force at the university…
  93. At Swansea, nearly 200 members of staff already left under a Voluntary Severance Scheme. In January 2025, the university recorded 342 colleagues had left, but that it would keep open the scheme for professional service staff. The university was then looking for £30 million in savings. By September, 2025, that sum was £25 million in savings to be found by the end of the academic year.
  94. Teesside opened a Voluntary Severance Scheme in Spring 2024 ‘to review how we deliver our business’… In autumn 2024, they moved to ‘Targeted Voluntary Redundancy’, with warnings that compulsory redundancies would follow if targets are not met. The destruction is compounded by undergraduate course closures, with Geography and Environmental Science affected. In October 2025, as the new term started, 39 lecturers were told that they had re-apply for their job, take voluntary redundancy by the end of the month, or face compulsory redundancy. The university seeks to lose at least one third of them, having benefited from their work over the summer to get this academic year started up and leaving the remaining staff with the extra workload.
  95. UCL‘s redundancies fall currently among fixed-term staff and Professional Service staff.
    • In 2024, they were getting rid of double figures of fixed term staff in their History department, drastically reducing the module offering, sacrificing student-staff long term support, and increasing the workload of remaining staff.
    • UCL had a voluntary severance scheme in 2022-23. The Academic Board discussed it 13 September, the webpage went live 14 October, the Scheme itself was open for applications from 28 November 2022 to midnight Sunday 15 January 2023. Unions were not meaningfully consulted despite records to the contrary.
    • In the autumn of 2024, more staff, in particular on Teaching & Scholarship contracts, lost their teaching opportunities. Many of these had been bought in to cover the overrecruitment of undergraduates in previous years.
    • UCL has been rolling out a slow restructure of their Professional Service teams, across 2024 and 2025. The plan has been implemented in different faculties at different times, making it less visible or possible to challenge. But in each faculty it leads to further centralisation and increase in workload for staff. The “Education Administration and Student Experience” (EASE) teams and the Marketing Teams are most directly affected
    • A slow but impactful restructure of the “Education Administration and Student Experience” (EASE) teams, including multiple redundancies is ongoing in the Summer of 2025. It is trying to shift the control, location, resources, and governance of administrative support for teaching from Departments to Faculties. Professional Service staff has become responsible for multiple departments, cutting them off from academic colleagues and local decision-making, and are moved from direct support for students towards managing student complaints. In the Summer of 2025, a proposed restructure in Faculty of Brain Sciences EASE staff put 17.5 FTE roles at risk of compulsory redundancy, and proposed offering around ten grade 7 staff put at risk of redundancy new grade 6 roles (or downgrading under immense pressure, essentially fire and rehire). There are also 7 proposed compulsory redundancies in Faculty of Life Sciences EASE staff, and 4 at Faculty of Social and History Sciences. UCL UCU and Unison have both now voted to open the collective dispute process with UCL management, calling for a pause + moratorium on the restructuring programme and for a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies.
  96. UEA is back into threats to jobs. In recent years, the university got dramatically restructured, with many facing months of uncertainty about redundancies and a couple of hundred people leaving under voluntary severance schemes, and others denied salary uptick in line with promotion. Yet the VC causing this got a nice bonus upon departure. In October 2023, the new VC claimed they had ‘turned a corner‘ and that compulsory redundancies were off the table, yet in October 2024 they were once again in shrinking mode and not ruling out compulsory redundancies. In November 2024 it transpired 170 colleagues would lose their jobs yet again. In June 2025, the university announced they would still seek to make 8 compulsory redundancies. In July, they’re targeting staff in Clinical Psychology (training mental health professionals) affecting about 18 colleagues.
  97. The University of Wales Trinity Saint David has gone through a round of Voluntary Severance already in 2024, which they reopened in November 2024. Their historic Lampeter campus is set to close, with all humanities teaching moving more than 20 miles away. In May 2025, they reopened their Voluntary Severance Scheme again.
  98. Warwick announced a ‘voluntary leavers scheme‘ in November 2025, citing the upcoming international students levy.
  99. The University of the West of England announced they needed 100 colleagues to leave via a ‘voluntary’ severance scheme.  In January 2025, Bristol Old Vic Theatre School (validated by UWE) and key in ensuring education in drama, acting, and associated arts was available to students outside of London (and bringing us talents such as Olivia Colman, Jeremy Irons, and Daniel Day-Lewis), announced they will no longer taking be running their UG programmes from September 2025. All applicants for September 2025 will have their auditions fees returned.
  100. The University of the West of Scotland is cutting into staffing cost in May 2025, putting jobs at risk. The Organisational Change Project identifies 75.2 FTE to cut, with specific numbers for each department.
  101. Winchester was served notice of proposed cuts. The university is proposing job cuts of up to 40 jobs and detrimental changes to the workload allocation model.
  102. Wolverhampton opened a Mutually Agreed Resignation Scheme in July 2024. This comes after they threatened 250 jobs in July 2022, to fill a £20 million deficit. 138 colleagues were made to leave. In Spring 2024, the university tried to cut research time for junior colleagues, thus drastically overturning what university is. In October 2024, senior management began further ‘organisational change’ putting about 35 academics at risk — alongside the reduction of staff via the ‘mutually agreed resignation scheme’ already. In February 2025, they announced they would be closing their Telford site. Though management claims this won’t result in compulsory redundancies, not everyone can relocate.
  103. Worcester opened the second round of its voluntary severance scheme in the late Summer of 2024, after an initial round earlier in the academic year. There has been some restructuring, and to date there has been one School merger. Staff are worried about course cuts and redundancies being on the horizon, and whilst these have not yet been announced, the VC has not ruled the option out. The university has not opened its reward scheme or promotion scheme since 2022 and there is a freeze on future staff appointments. Management also set up a subsidiary company to employ future staff who will not be allowed access to the Teacher’s Pension Scheme (TPS) or Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS), instead being forced to accept an inferior defined contribution scheme where employer contributions will reduce significantly. This creates an inequitable, two-tier workforce, and staff are concerned that there will be pressure for existing staff to be moved on to the inferior scheme. 
  104. The University of York had a Voluntary Severance Scheme for staff in Professional Services in 2023, and a wider voluntary severance scheme in April 2024. Management never articulated how many members of staff they wanted to leave. But in May 2024, they noted they’re looking to cut £34 million, which would amount to between 400-700 members of staff. In September 2024, the University Executive Board announced moving to compulsory redundancy of 30 academic posts. Their UCU Branch wrote this open letter indicating the lack of consultation. By December, they had managed to get the compulsory redundancies back off the table. But in February 2025, the VC announced looking for another £15 million in cuts, including through “additional savings in staff costs” with voluntary severance schemes “in specific areas” and flexible retirement.
  105. The University of York St John announced they’re going to find £4-5m in savings this financial year, on the back of staff. This comes after multiple rounds of Voluntary Severance Schemes in previous years.

Redundancies mapped

The Notes from Below team has been pinning the redundancies on a map. Colouring in most of the UK at this point.

In recent years

  1. Gloustershire made people redundant in the summer of 2023, after cutting 100 posts in 2018.
  2. Leeds Conservatoire cut heavily in its Music and Performing Arts School in 2023, getting rid of about a fifth of its full time academic staff.
  3. Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts threatened compulsory redundancies in 2022; these became a voluntary severance scheme.
  4. Nottingham Trent was under threat of restructuring and the resulting redundancies in the winter of 2024. At the end of February, the branch could announce that no compulsory redundancies would take place, but they lost valued colleagues through voluntary severance and early retirement, and some full-time roles were reduced to fractional appointments. The restructure of the School of Arts and Humanities led to job losses in April 2024. This wasn’t the first restructure, following one in Modern Languages in 2021.
  5. Salford

Mergers

Amidst the pressures on the sector, senior managers are merging institutions.

  • City St George, based on St George merging with City in 2024.
  • ‘London and the South East’, constituted by Greenwich and Kent, from September 2026. Staff found out at the same time as the rest of the country through the publication of a BBC article on 10 September 2025.

Reports, responses, and counter-arguments

  • De Montfort University had a thorough response to the job cuts in 2022.
  • Oxford Brookes drew up a financial analysis and a helpful overview of strategic demands.
  • QMUL has no actual financial reason for the drastic slashing into staff resource, as we outline in this blogpost.
  • Royal Holloway’s ucu in 2011 challenged the financial rationale in not one but two documents.
  • Sussex breaking down the “Size & Shape” project.
  • There is an extensive report on the local importance of Teesside, also digested in this twitter thread.
  • York St Johns counted the beans and showed the financial narrative is faulty in 2024.

Where to start?

Here are five first steps for anyone new to university work, new to union organising, and for anyone who is feeling overwhelmed and unsure where to start.

  1. Help amplify the questions asked about the financial justifications and feasibility of the cuts. You can find branches communicating publicly via this list.
  2. Talk to your local branch officers and see if you can bring your expertise to bear on a campaign – analysing financial statements, developing communication, assessing equality impact. Find your branch here, and examples of branches countering their management’s accounting here.
  3. Read and share stories about university workers who have successfully fought cuts, who have won better rights, who have improved their working conditions. University of London IWGB members fought for their right to be in-house and wonUniversity of Liverpool UCU members blocked compulsory redundancies.
  4. Talk with students, let them know what is happening, find out what they know. Students can encourage their local Student Union to ask questions about the consequences of the staff cuts and why no other solutions are discussed. (the cuts will hit students; see this thread)
  5. Write to your MP and make sure they know the public is watching HE and is concerned about the lack of concern for a sector that is key to local communities and builds towards the future of the entire country. You can find your MP here.

91 thoughts on “UK HE shrinking

  1. You can add Bournemouth University – voluntary severance scheme opened. I can’t find any record other than our intranet about it yet in the public domain (word is that involutary redundancies may follow)

  2. https://cgs.org.uk/news/sunderland-university-to-close-glass-and-ceramics-courses/

    Sunderland closing all Glass and Ceramics courses.
    ‘The Board has therefore decided that the University’s glass and ceramics academic programme should close in summer 2026. This will allow current students to complete their courses at the University. The University will also stop recruiting to the undergraduate glass and ceramics course due to start in September 2024.’

  3. University of Hull- voluntary scheme, but it has been strongly implied that if take up is low future schemes will not come with such good incentives.

    1. Closed in early March. While voluntary it was specifically mentioned in the email that it would mainly be targeted at people at levels 8-9, particularly those who are not research productive. The people considered for the scheme were sent individual emails.

      We are waiting to see if the uptake was what they expected and if further action will be taken.

      1. individual emails, how deeply threatening. Some of our colleagues got a Special Delivery envelope at their home address with the VSS which already felt superthreatening (turns out it was people on leave, and the reason only the profs on leave got it was because every ECR has had to move sooooo often because of cost of living, HR doesn’t have their address…)

  4. Middlesex University is making its entire theatre dept redundant (13 academic posts). The wealth of talent loss this represents for the research community is huge, especially in the run up to the next REF. These 13 academics collectively represent some of the leading thinkers on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary practice with specialisms in Immersive Theatre, Race and Equality, Futures Literacy, Performance Art, Applied Theatre, Feldenkris, Gender and Disability, Immersive Set Design, Socially Engaged Practice, Queer Theory, Phenomenology, and Directing to name just a few. 

    The MA in Theatre Arts has been confirmed as cut and the BA is to be redesigned to be run on limited staff. And where talent is absent, it will be compensated via zero hours staffing where deemed necessary. Other cut programmes include the MA Arts Management, and the MA Creative Theatre and Entertainment Technologies (which was suspended before being allowed to be marketed properly). 

    This comes on top of the closure of the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture https://moda.mdx.ac.uk/ with the loss of 4 jobs. And the proposed removal of the Interpretation & Translation academic area with  the loss of 6 academic posts

    23 jobs in total so far.

    It has been suggested there are plans to cut jobs in Dance and review the provision of Music as well.

    1. What a terrible onslaught. Thanks for letting us know and much solidarity to you all. The attack on the arts is enormous. Are management sharing any numbers in saving they’re trying to reach? And indicating whether this is an actual deficit or just a shortfall against projected budgets?

      1. Jo Grady visited our campus at Middlesex last week and confirmed that they had independently verified that the university’s claims to be in financial dire straits is a lie. This is simply a streamlining exercise at the expense of individuals livelihoods.

    2. Just to add to UEA woes, promotion was closed in 22-23 reopened in 23-24 but those awarded promotion did not receive the financial uplift commensurate with the title (so after 24 years teaching I’m now an Assoc Professor, but on Lecturer salary). In the current compulsory redundancies (170 posts) Arts & Humanities have again been targeted, as well as Professional Services.

  5. in recent years; University of Plymouth had a round of redundancies in 2018, 2019 and carried into 2020. Jobs lost were in music and other departments.

  6. Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, has a voluntary severance scheme open currently for a fixed period.

  7. Aston University has a redundancy consultation for colleagues in the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences.
    A voluntary redundancy severance scheme is in effect across the whole university.

  8. I’m positive that Aberystwyth recently opened a scheme to encourage people to retire, cut their hours, etc. My friend just jumped ship because of it. Could be added to the list?

  9. Coventry University has had a number of redundancy rounds since last year. Almost all departments have hit. The latest being research services, research institutes and the top management. And it does not like it’s the end of it ! Recruitment is kept to the strict essential.

  10. BSc Anthropology (one of the very few mixed bio/ social anthropology degrees in the UK), BSc Human Biology and and Behaviour and the MSc in Ethnobotany have all been formally closed at Kent as of last Thursday. 8-10 staff facing redundancy.

  11. In the ‘In Recent Years’ section should be added Kingston University, which axed Politics/IR/Human Rights, History, and other subjects, and now appears to be lining up Philosophy for the same treatment.

    1. There’s also been at least one round of voluntary severance across the board – I took vs in the first round in 2019.

      1. Thanks! I had put that pre-history in the entry of the main list (this isn’t exactly the most well-thought-out formatting of this list, I will admit…). I’ve added the note about the voluntary severance scheme in 2019 already there as well.

  12. You can add the University of St Mark & St John in Plymouth – usually known as Plymouth Marjon.

    27FTE redundancies proposed late November ’23. Accurate figures not available, but redundancies have been made. Roughly 24 FTE have left now. Some by redundancy, some to other jobs.

  13. UCL – University College London had a voluntary severance scheme- applications from Monday 28 November 2022 to midnight Sunday 15 January 2023 for severance end of May 2024- just google it – it is still there

  14. Very little reporting locally or elsewhere about U.Cumbria.
    Arts and education redundancies and voluntary severance across all institutes.
    Likely more to come while the university cozies up to BAE and Sellafield and focuses its provision around these companies.

  15. NTU completed its consultation exercise in Arts and Humanities in February. No compulsory redundancies but significant job losses through voluntary redundancy/MARS/retirement. A number of full-time roles were reduced to fractional appointments. This followed a similar exercise in Modern Languages in 2021.

  16. there seems to be an error in your Portsmouth entry – it mentions £250m but it’s not clear what that’s referring to

  17. university of Lincoln have said they need to save £30m – a round of voluntary severance has just finished and there will be targeted voluntary redundancies next. Plus a staff recruitment freeze. The school of Film,Media and Journalism is to close and is being merged with School of Arts (with Journalism moving to a new smaller school of English and Communication. The Community radio station is to close and financial support for the Media Archive for Central England is ending

  18. University of Gloucestershire has gone under significant restructure since end of 2022 (Project Reset), reducing the number of academic schools, closing courses and reducing staff numbers (academic and professional services). All alongside investing millions in a new campus!

      1. They also cancelled an advertised promotion round last year. On the final day of the working year. Having opened it in October. The intranet page for academic promotions now returns a “404 – not found” error.

  19. University of Huddersfield has just announced 12% reduction in staff across the institution – all compulsory redundancies – after several rounds of redundancies in previous years.

    Huddersfield also spending £250m on new buildings while several of the existing university buildings are being moth-balled.

  20. University of Roehampton is currently asking folks to take advantage of ‘flexible futures’ scheme – otherwise known as voluntary severance.

  21. Surprised not to see the university for the creative arts here – they axed a whole campus last year with the loss of around 150 jobs and several courses ended.

  22. University of Plymouth announced a round of cuts that will affect the Business School, Institute of Education, and the humanities (History, Art History, English, Politics). They’re starting with a voluntary scheme and will move to compulsory in July.

    The numbers imply 16-22 job losses.

    The institution is in profit.

  23. University of Chester now having second round of voluntary redundancy, running May-June

  24. Glasgow Caledonian has reopened their mutual severance scheme from June-October, ostensibly because people fed back that they couldn’t make a decision in such a short time frame in the first round. I think we all know the real reason is probably that they didn’t get ‘enough’ applicants first time round.

  25. Although not having degree awarding powers (yet!) the Metanoia Institute has recently been through redundancies, losing a number of support/admin staff, under the somewhat grandiosely-titled “organisational enhancement plan”. The numbers are not specifically known as staff have not been told outright in all-staff meetings the quantum affected. Can nobody see the mammal with the trunk and the flappy ears in the room?

  26. I can’t see Gloucestershire on the list but they definitely should be. They had redundancies and department mergers least year.

  27. Loughborough has a VS scheme open at the moment. DMU has had regular VS scheme (roughly every 2 years) since maybe 2011?

  28. You can add seven compulsory academic redundancies to Kent. They closed their Brussels campus – the Brussels School of International Studies (BSIS) – with the final taught term being Spring term 2024. With the closure of BSIS, they closed their MA in International Migration, MA in International Development, MA in Global Political Economy, MA Political Strategy and Communication, MA European Public Policy, MA International Relations (Brussels), MA International Conflict and Security (Brussels), LLM in International Law (Brussels), LLM in Human Rights Law (Brussels). The seven academic staff lost their jobs.

  29. Moving offshore, the University of Wollongong in Australia is targeting 137 academics, mostly from HASS, ostensibly due to a projected decline in international enrollments due to government visa restrictions [which has not actually been passed, as of December]. Almost all universities rely on international students. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-05/university-of-wollongong-cuts-academic-jobs-international-cap/104560250 . There are cuts going through at the Australian National University, LaTrobe, Canberra, Univ of Southern Queensland, UTS, JCU, UNSW, Queensland and several others. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/oct/26/a-thousand-australian-university-jobs-are-at-risk-whos-to-blame-for-the-dire-financial-state and Times Higher Education Nov 7, “Tide out on Australian university expansion as job cuts mount”.

  30. Uni of Essex: now 200 in redundancy. Voluntary leave at the moment. VC is changing the wording of the announcements. It was no department is in risk to no ‘discipline’ is in risk.

  31. Compulsory redundancies are off the table (for now) at the University of York after they came to agreements with the relevant departments. For now at least they’re trying to find savings elsewhere, like turning the heating off during the Xmas break (???)

  32. It would be good if you could update the details on University of Sheffield to reflect the reality of the situation, that professional staff are taking a disproportionate hit through Voluntary Severance – IT services, Accommodation and Commercial Services, the English Language Teaching Centre, and all professional services staff in Schools and Faculties are in scope for the scheme, and it’s been made clear that staff in any other part of the University are very welcome to apply. Not to downplay the impact on academic staff, but the punishing burden placed on professional staff needs to be made visible.

    1. absolutely! The slashing of Professional Service staff has been disastrous across the sector (and terrifying how much senior managers have thought they could get away with it); so much institutional knowledge gone, such expert colleagues lost, and such a pretence that institutions can run without that deep understanding. thanks for helping to highlight that!

  33. Since this page is getting long. Could you guys add a section that tells us which items have been recently updated? Thanks.

    1. ha! yeah, we’ve been trying to figure out if there’s a way of highlighting in colour the new additions/updates each month or so, but wordpress doesn’t allow that. We try to do a bit of a round-up on bluesky and twitter when there’s been another bumper crop (happened in mid-November when the financial accounts were being drawn up: https://x.com/qm_ucu/status/1846904810311717135; assuming that will happen again in mid February after the census point for January entrants). We’ll see if a separate ‘most recently updated’ heading would solve some of it.

  34. Hull made academics (including research active REF submittable professors) compulsorily redundant on December 16th.

  35. Bristol Old Vic Theatre School (validated by UWE) will no longer taking be running their UG programmes from September 2025 due to the capping of student fees among other financial challenges. All applicants for September 2025 will have their auditions fees returned.

  36. More courses suspended (code for closed) at Bournemouth University and the VC has said she cannot rule out compulsory redundancies. You can see these courses all say on their web-pages “please note this course is not recruiting for Sept 2025”). This isn’t a complete list (we’ve seen a longer one internally). Where it’s just the foundation year which is listed as not recruiting, this has been a precursor to the suspension of the full degree the following year in our experience:

    https://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/study/courses/bsc-hons-anthropology

    https://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/study/courses/ba-hons-archaeology-anthropology

    https://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/study/courses/bsc-hons-games-programming-1

    https://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/study/courses/ba-hons-english-2

    https://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/study/courses/ba-hons-politics

    https://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/study/courses/llb-hons-law-politics-0

    https://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/study/courses/bsc-hons-environmental-science-2

  37. The University of the West of Scotland is needing to save £10m from staffing costs for this FY. UWS is also going through an “Organisational Change Project” with the aim to reduce it’s recent deficits – despite having c. £80m in reserves.
    Redundancies, even compulsory ones, have not been taken off the table resulting in a fall out with the relevant Trade Unions. Staff are currently balloting for potential strike action.

  38. The University of Worcester had a 3rd round of voluntary severance in October/November 2024, with staff leaving at the end of January 2025 as the University continued to cut the wage bill and reduce the ongoing budget deficit.

  39. Arts University Bournemouth is looking to make over 90 compulsory redundancies. The 75 figure was an FTE that was somewhat disingenuously given out to the press.

  40. UCL is undertaking a PS staff organisational change procedure with its ‘Functions/Service Simplification’ process. This affects PS staff across all academic departments.

    The signs are that redundancies and/or downgrading’s are in the pipeline.  A number of PS staff will be taken out of academic departments to work in siloed centralised roles.

  41. University of Edinburgh update – in late April it was confirmed ~350 staff have taken the Voluntary severance offered in February. This would save the University ~£18m. A small portion of the £140m cost reduction needed. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj9e894z23jo

    For reference, Edinburgh employs over 18,000 staff (both academic and professional services).

    Edinburgh principal ‘doesn’t know exact salary’ – despite being Scotland’s highest paid university principal…

  42. University of Stirling now to add having announced “organisational realignment” and voluntary redundancy scheme that will be open for the next 10 weeks. Savings of £8m the target.

  43. Please pass this link onto anyone you might know who has left HE or thinking of leaving.

    Participants Needed for my MSc Research Study!

    My name is Doreen Harris and I am looking for participants to be involved in my Integrative Counselling and Psychotherapy MSc dissertation. I am currently studying at the University of Wolverhampton, looking for participants to complete a short survey followed by an interview with myself.

    The study aims to research the reasons behind why higher educational professionals have left their roles. I am hoping that this will help highlight where and what support is needed for the mental health of these professionals.

    Inclusion Criteria:
    ➢ Intending to leave their role in higher education within the next 6 months.
    ➢ That you have worked in higher education and left within the past 10 years.

    To access the survey please see the link below:

    https://wolverhamptonpsych.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_82ETILcI5H6vwQC 

    Thank you for contributing to this important research!
    For any queries please contact the following:
    Doreen Harris: D.E.Harris2@wlv.ac.uk

  44. Bradford have identified which of its professors are at risk of compulsory redundancy, including those who teach on one of its most popular programmes, which staff say will be unable to run without them

  45. At the University for the Creative Arts following extensive professional services cuts, a second round of redundancies has targeted Epsom in response to drops in target student numbers of circa 50% on some courses – no link available to provide

  46. Glasgow Caledonian has relaunched its mutual severance scheme (2nd Oct-28th Nov). Reasons given are the government white paper, reduced international student numbers and the recent UKVI audit which led to the university being placed on an action plan where they had to pause recruitment on many courses. No link to provide – internal email and webpage.

  47. At Nottingham they are just launching Future Nottingham Phase 2. This will reorganise the current 5 faculties into 3 ‘colleges’ and reduce the number of schools from 26 to 10. Duplication of subject areas for teaching and researcher to be removed and disengagement from areas which other institutions do better. Extensive job losses for academics expected but numbers unclear. All to be in place by September 2026.

  48. Teesside University is effectively attempting to cut 14 of the existing 39 Principal Lecturer posts, across all schools.

    It plans on scrapping all of the posts, replacing them with 25 new posts, and forcing existing PLs to apply for these posts.

    The University is doing this in the first instance through VR but will not rule out CR

  49. I wonder whether this situation stems from the recent government policy raising the international student sponsorship visa requirement from £29k to £41k per year potentially deterring overseas enrolment or if it’s due to internal mismanagement, particularly as leadership expands operations overseas to attract students while simultaneously implementing local redundancies. Trying to understand from international graduate perspective.

  50. Warwick have just announced a voluntary redundancy scheme, which they are euphemistically calling a ‘Voluntary Leavers Scheme’. The internal announcement claims that the university is not in financial trouble, but need to “manage rising costs”, including anticipated future costs from the International Student Levy. There is no mention of exactly how many redundancies university management are looking for, but they claim to be ‘investing’ £10m in the project. The offer is 30 weeks’ salary, or 15 weeks’ salary for those with less than two years of continuous service.

  51. Uni staff ‘intimidated’ by pay forfeit warning – the University of Sheffield has threatened not to pay members of staff unless they make up for teaching missed while on strike. The university has said if they do not carry out the missed teaching, despite not having been paid for it, an extra two weeks of pay in January 2026 would also be withheld.

    See https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78v7k8vn20o

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