Update on national and local ballots in relation to strike action

The financial position of the Higher Education sector remains both challenging and long-term. Lower than anticipated levels of international student recruitment, the continuing decline in the real-terms value of tuition fee income from UK undergraduates, and the continuing increase in employers’ costs have all added to financial pressures. In addition, the rise in employers’ National Insurance contributions (which adds around £370m to the sector’s pay bill) and the introduction of the International Student Levy will wipe out the impact of the rise in domestic tuition fees. Against this challenging financial backdrop, UCEA's 2025-26 pay offer (which has now been implemented by Higher Education employers) was an uplift on each point of the New JNCHES pay spine of 1.4% from 1 August 2025.

The trade unions rejected this offer, and the University and College Union (UCU), Unison and Unite recently balloted their members about taking strike action and/or action short of a strike regarding issues of pay and working conditions in the Higher Education sector.

University and College Union (UCU) opened a national ballot, which was aggregated across 137 institutions, while Exeter’s Unison and Unite branches carried out local ballots.

Increases to the national pay spine are negotiated at national level, and non-pay issues are negotiated at a local, institutional level with our campus trade unions.  

At Exeter, we are continuing to progress our Fair Employment For All initiative. Since 2020 we have converted around 1000 colleagues previously on fixed term contracts onto permanent contracts and we are continuously reviewing fixed -term contracts to move those eligible onto permanent contracts. 

Our postgraduate research students who undertake regular scheduled work are now employed on a contract for the full year, with guaranteed minimum hours, rather than being engaged on an ad hoc basis. This means they can access the full range of benefits that are offered to colleagues. 

The University continues to monitor pay gaps in relation to gender, ethnicity and disability. (Progress on the equality pay gaps are shared online.) The University will continue to work with trade unions and other stakeholders, through our equality groups, to progress and monitor the commitments set out in the Race Equality Charter  and our Athena Swan accreditations and action plans which will have a positive impact on the student and colleague experience, and address historic inequalities in staff salaries. We will work together to ensure the positive contribution our Colleague Experience Survey can make in appropriately identifying further improvements to colleagues’ working environment, and monitor the effectiveness of actions. 

The University will continue to work with trade unions, locally and nationally, to share, develop, implement and review principles and best practice for the management of the workloads of academic and Professional Services colleagues sector-wide. A new policy of University Academic Workload Principles and Processes has been rolled out.  Work is continuing on workload allocation and equity across our professional services divisions.