‌Salaries and oncosts

Statutory rates are rates of payment paid and regulated by the UK government. Many of these payments are updated annually. The following table has the current statutory rates for a number of benefits and regulations.

National Minimum Wage

Tier 2 (General) Certificate of Sponsorship

The Tier 2 CoS currently costs £239.  This cost is normally picked up by the College/Service, whereas the cost of the visa should be picked up by the person.

Tier 5 (Government Authorised Exchange)

The Tier 5 CoS currently costs £25.  This cost is normally picked up by the College/Service, whereas the cost of the visa should be picked up by the person.

1. Following consultation with Human Resources, a College/ Professional Service may agree that a member of staff should be paid an acting up allowance where, for any reason other than the annual leave of another employee, they are required by the College PVC/ Director of Professional Service to undertake the full duties and responsibilities of a higher graded post for a continuous period of at least four weeks.

2. All cases of acting up must be time-limited to cover a specific, short-term requirement, and they should not normally exceed 12 months duration. Human Resources will review acting up allowances with the College PVC/Director of Professional Service at regular intervals.

3. Approval for the acting up allowance is as follows:

• Line manager completes the eSR1 request form
• On receipt of the request the Employee Services team will set up the eSR1 and the line manager will receive an email containing the link to the eSR1
• Line manager completes the eSR1 for the acting up allowance and submits it for approval.

4. The acting-up allowance will be based on the salary that would apply were the member of staff promoted to the higher graded post, ie the difference between their current salary and the first point of the higher grade (or the next point up the scale if the member of staff is currently paid at a point which overlaps with the bottom of the higher grade).

5. Where the member of staff is required to undertake some, but not all of the duties and responsibilities of a higher graded post – for example, where the duties and responsibilities are shared between more than one officer – the College PVC/Director of Professional Service may agree with their HR Business Partner an acting-up allowance of a smaller sum, dependent upon circumstances of the case.

6. In every case where an acting-up allowance is approved, HR Services will write to the employee to advise them of the reason for the allowance, the amount of the allowance and the period of the allowance.

7. The amount of the allowance will be fixed for the duration of the period of acting up/secondment and will only be revised:

(a) to take account of any nationally agreed general increase; or

(b) in arrangements covered by paragraph 2, if the employee has been acting up for more than at least one year at 1 August, in which case the allowance will be increased by the equivalent of an increment from 1 August (provided this is within the normal progression range of the grade).

All additional payments must be within policies and procedures approved by Human Resources. 

If you are eligible for an allowance (this will be outlined in your contract of employment), the following provides further information on each kind of allowance.

Shift

• See eligibility criteria in the Conditions of Employment.
• This allowance is pensionable.
• As part of the amendments to Grades B and C introduced in August 2019, the Alternating Shift Allowance was set at £1841 per annum (pro-rata for part-time staff) from 1 August 2019. This is increased by the same as the general uplift to the national payspine agreed annually by JNCHES unless otherwise agreed by the University following consultation with trade unions. The full time Shift Pay Allowance following the August 2023 national uplift is £2021 per annum.

Split duties

• See eligibility criteria in the Conditions of Employment.
• This allowance is pensionable.
• Current rate: 12p per hour for all hours worked [on the day(s) of the split shift]. (Not linked to general increases)

Night work

• See eligibility criteria in the Conditions of Employment
• This allowance is pensionable.
• Rate is one-third of salary for all hours worked between 10pm and 6am.

Standby/Call-out

• Applicable only to certain designated staff in Property Services, Exeter IT, Communications and Marketing, Biosciences and Camborne School of Mines.
• Some (but not all) Standby Allowances are pensionable.

First aid

• See eligibility criteria in the Conditions of Service.
• Note that this allowance is being phased out over the period October 2021 to September 2024.  New First Aiders (or requalified First Aiders) appointed from 1 October 2021 do not receive this allowance.
• This allowance is not pensionable.

Overtime and holiday pay

• Overtime holiday pay will be paid to all staff who work overtime which is not at a fixed time but when the University requests then the employee must work overtime i.e. those on call out or standby.*  If staff receive one of these allowances then an 'Overtime holiday' payment will be made.  Voluntary overtime will not be included.
• Staff covered by this would be those who receive a call out/standby allowance (Property Services, Exeter IT, Press Office and any employee contractually required to be on a rota), those who work within the severe weather team or employees who work overtime on a rota basis to care for animals or plants (which is not already classed as guaranteed overtime as this is already included in holiday pay calculations).
• Holiday overtime will be calculated as: (additional payments over year/total working hours for the year) x hours leave taken (contractual annual leave and Bank Hoiday/Closure); This will be calculated using the HR Trent System in January each year covering the period from the previous January to December and this will automatically be paid with January's salary for anyone eligible for a payment.
• * allowances included:  Call out miles (other), Call out miles (Property Services), Call out Property Services (Operational), Exeter IT Call out, Severe Weather allowance, Standy by - Resident Duty Managers, Standby Property Services (Operational), Property Services (Operational) - Pensionable.
• This allowance is not pensionable.

Aeriel Arboricultural Allowance

• Applicable to qualified and active tree surgeons in Grounds Services.
• This allowance is pensionable.

Tool and goods carriage

• Applicable to operational staff in Property Services who are required to use their own vehicles in accordance with the collective agreement between the University and recognised trade unions.
• This allowance is not pensionable.

Acting-up

• Applicable in circumstances detailed in the University policy on acting-up payments.
• This allowance is pensionable.

Market supplements and Personal Value Supplements

• Where a or Personal Value Supplment is approved in accordance with the Policy on Attraction and Retention Premia in the Conditions of Employment
• Market Supplements and Personal Value Supplments are pensionable.

Special

• Only to be used for pensionable recurrent and one-off payments which are approved by Human Resources when none of the above apply.

Special

• Only to be used for non-pensionable recurrent and one-off payments which are approved by Human Resources when none of the above apply.

For information about grading, please visit the support staff grading site.

Oncosts are any additional costs that need to be taken into account, in addition to salary, to budget the full employment costs of a new post or existing staff member. The primary oncosts that are borne by the University are:

National Insurance

Employer National Insurance contributions (NICs) are currently 13.8% of pay above the “salary threshold”, which is revised by the Government each year. Employee National Insurance contributions are approximately 10.0% of salary (wef 6th January 2024) Technical information on the contribution rates and thresholds for National Insurance can be found on the UK government’s webpages.

Pension

Staff in Grades E and above automatically become members of a national pension scheme for higher education called the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS). The current employer contribution rate, which is determined by USS, is 14.5% (wef 1st January 2024)

Staff in Grades B to D automatically become members of the University of Exeter Retirement Savings Scheme (ERSS). The current employer contribution rate is 12.0%.

You should always budget for the employee being a member of the pension scheme. Even if they opt-out, they can (subject to the rules of the scheme) choose to re-join at a later date and they may also be re-enrolled through the statutory scheme for pension auto-enrolment. It is an offence to induce an employee to opt out of the relevant pension scheme.

Apprenticeship Levy

The Apprenticeship Levy is a new tax introduced by the UK government from April 2017 to fund its planned increase in apprenticeship training. The Apprenticeship Levy is calculated and applied at employer level (rather than employee level like National Insurance). The Levy is 0.5% of the University’s total payroll costs, less an allowance of £15,000 per annum. In practice, this means that a charge of 0.44% is applied on each employee’s and casual worker’s pay. each month The Levy applies to everyone paid through both the main and casual payrolls. Technical information on the Apprenticeship Levy can be found on the UK government’s webpages.

Apprenticeships Apprenticeships Oncost Table

You should also budget for the cost of annual increments, any allowances, travel/expenses, equipment, etc.

For full-time, all year appointments, where oncosts are required for salary costing purposes, it is simplest to refer to the oncost table ‌

For more complex calculations, such as those that may require allowances, increments, NI/Pension or calculations for part-time appointments, we recommend using the salary oncost calculator.‌

Note: These oncosts are calculated using current UK tax and social security rates. If an employee is working outside the UK then the oncosts will vary depending on the country in which they are working.