Joanna Sugden, The Times, Thursday, 19th March 2009.
University vice-chancellors are enjoying some of the highest salaries in the country, while lecturers and students are struggling to cope in the economic downturn.
One vice-chancellor earned more than £500,000 including benefits, and 63 are on salaries of more than £200,000. Their average pay rise was 9 per cent, bringing the average wage to £194,000.
Other academics and student leaders reacted furiously to the results of a survey of salaries of university academic and administrative chiefs by Times Higher Education magazine.
The details emerged days after a report published by vice-chancellors said that universities may double tuition fees to deal with a funding crisis and that they could not afford huge pay hikes for their staff. Lecturers can expect an average wage of £43,686 after a pay rise of 5.7 per cent last year, which vice-chancellors said was the limit of affordability.
Sir Colin Campbell, who stepped down as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nottingham last year, topped the league and made £585,000 — an 89 per cent salary increase on the previous year. He had a pension contribution of £38,000.
John Hood, the outgoing Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, received £238,000 in salary and benefits after a 12 per cent pay rise.
The survey of 156 universities in Britain found that the average pension contribution for vice-chancellors was £26,129, a 16 per cent increase. At Cambridge, Alison Richard receives £227,000 in salary and perks for overseeing the administration and academic business of the university.
Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and Colleges Union which represents lecturers, said: “It is quite incredible and rather distasteful that vice-chancellors again have enjoyed such exorbitant pay rises.
“That vice-chancellors were pocketing close to twice the pay rise they begrudged staff at the time is extraordinary.”
Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: “One has to wonder how far the drive to push up tuition fees is being driven by universities’ need to find the money to pay their vice-chancellors’ salaries.”
Wes Streeting, president of the National Union of Students, said: “Vice-chancellors need to practise what they preach. They work incredibly hard for their institutions but so do the frontline staff who they are asking to take minimal pay increases.”
But Diana Warwick, head of Universities UK, which represents vice-chancellors, said: “The remuneration packages for vice-chancellors reflect what it takes to recruit and retain individuals able to run complex, multi-million pound organisations, which are operating in an increasingly competitive, global market. These particular figures relate back to 2007-08 and it’s important to note that the average increase shown here reflects a period in which overall pay rises for higher education staff were broadly similar.”
Top ten earners
1. University of Nottingham: Sir Colin Campbell £585,000
2. Imperial College London: Richard Sykes/Sir Roy Anderson £429,000 between them
3. London Business School: Laura Tyson £364,000
4. University of the Arts London: Michael Bichard* £307,603
5. University College London: Malcolm Grant £295,621
6. University of Birmingham: Michael Sterling £292,000
=7. Thames Valley University: Peter John £291,000
=7. University of Manchester: Alan Gilbert £291,000
=9. University of Liverpool: Drummond Bone £285,000
=9. University of Surrey: Christopher Snowden £285,000
* Since stepped down
Source: Times Higher Education magazine
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