Prospective staff

Our benefits

At the University of Exeter, we’re proud to offer a comprehensive and evolving range of excellent benefits to our staff. We believe in creating a supporting and inclusive workplace, where everyone can thrive – both professionally and personally.  

Smiling staff member

Flexible working

To help achieve our vision of being one of the world’s leading universities, we want to build a world class workforce. We can work towards this through enabling our managers to build flexible teams whilst creating a positive working environment in which all our staff can succeed. Different ways of flexible working could include flexitimes, part-time working, compressed hours, hybrid- or remote working options and job sharing. Find out more about flexible working

A focus on health and wellbeing 

The University of Exeter values the health and wellbeing of all out staff and students. All staff can make use of the below: 

  • Workplace wellbeing - our webpages signpost a range of internal and external support services, specific wellbeing services can be found in our A-Z of Wellbeing.  
  • Spectrum Life - Spectrum Life provides confidential, impartial advice and support 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The service is free for University of Exeter staff members. 
  • Sport centres on our Exeter and Penryn campuses with discounts for staff members.  
  • Chaplaincy - the Multifaith Chaplains work together to serve the whole University community: students and staff, of all faiths and worldviews, whether religious or not.

 

The University offers a wide range of opportunities for professional and personal development throughout your career. There are a range of training programmes that staff can attend, put on by internal and external providers, from short online courses to intensive in person training events. We also offer coaching and mentoring, apprenticeships, secondments and more.  

Annual leave – We offer a generous 39/41 days (incl. bank holidays and closure days) of annual leave, depending on your grade.  

Family leave 

The University of Exeter offers a wide range of family leave, including: 

  • Maternity leave – 26 weeks full pay, 13 weeks at either SMP or rate equal to 90% of average weekly earnings, whichever is lowest, 13 weeks unpaid
  • Paternity/Partner - up to six weeks paid leave. 
  • Adoption Leave - 26 weeks full pay, 13 weeks at either SAP or rate equal to 90% of average weekly earnings, whichever is lowest, 13 weeks unpaid. 
  • Shared Parental Leave - the University offers shared parental leave to enable parents to choose how to share the care for their child during the first year of birth or adoption. After the first year, we offer the option of (unpaid) parental leave.  
  • Neonatal Care leave – the University recognises the emotional stresses experienced by parents of children requiring additional medical help in the first weeks following birth. We wish to support those employees who are going through this difficult situation. 
  • Fertility leave - the University recognises the physical and emotional stresses of undergoing fertility testing and treatment and wishes to support those staff and those staff with partners who are going through the process. 

Furthermore, we offer other types of leave such as compassionate, care and emergency leave, study leave and a Career Break Scheme.  

The University is committed to helping working parents and carers, and offers a variety of benefits for staff, in addition to the different types of family leave, including: 

The University offers two pensions packages, depending on Grade of the role. You can find out more about these pension schemes here. 

  • ERSS - for staff in Grades B-D, which uses a tiered matching contribution structure to give flexibility towards employees. How much you choose to pay into your pension will therefore determine what the University contributes. The default employee contribution is 4% of the salary and a University contribution of 6%.  
  • USS – for staff Grade E and above,currently employee contribution is at 6.1% of salary and University contribution is 14.5%.  

The university offers a variety of schemes to support your (work)travels in line with our sustainability goals, such as a Cycle to Work scheme, a Car scheme to acquire a new energy-efficient car through salary exchange, discounted bus travel, the University minibus and our Car sharing scheme.

The University believes people should work in an environment where they are valued and where exceptional performance is recognised. 

  • Above & Beyond - the University’s employee recognition scheme that celebrates the excellent contribution our employees make to the success of the University. Through A&B staff are able to send any colleague within the University an eThank-you card in appreciation of a contribution they have made. 
  • Discounts - the University offers a wide range of financial benefits to staff including discounts at both local and national shops, NUS Extra cards, and the Exeter Rewards cashback card. 

The university values community engagement, as reflected in our social networks, regular newsletter, and active theatre program. 

  • Networks - we have a range of staff groups, networks and activities that staff members can join, from a community gardening club, sports groups and wellbeing, LGBTQ+, parent and carer and disability networks.  
  • Access to a range of internal and external support services 
  • Weekly newsletter - the University puts out a weekly bulletin to keep staff up to date with sector news, hear about individual and team successes, updates from faculties or services, links to upcoming events and learning and development opportunities.  
  • Northcott Theatre - the Northcott Theatre, Exeter’s flagship theatre, is on Streatham campus and offers a wide variety of performances to be enjoyed by all.