Recruitment rounds at universities are becoming increasingly “hard to predict”, with the redundancy crisis leading to frantic competition for academic jobs but also putting off people who may once have joined the sector.
Thousands of people leaving their posts in the past few years – alongside heightened interest from the US because of the Trump administration’s cuts – have led to application numbers more than doubling for some vacancies as uncertainty continues to cloud the future of the sector.
Most universities have enacted hiring freezes on top of making job cuts, but those who are hiring have a greater talent pool to choose from, according to Rachel Brooks, professor of higher education at the University of Oxford, who recently advertised for a three-year postdoctoral researcher.
She said she received more than double the number of applicants she would have typically expected for the role – 203 compared with fewer than 100 people previously.
“The quality was definitely higher than when I’ve previously recruited,” Brooks said. “A large majority of applicants had relevant experience and subject knowledge, which hasn’t always been the case in the past. It was very difficult to decide between candidates, and in the end, we had to introduce new selection criteria, as so many people met our initial criteria.”
A growing number of high-quality applicants appeared to have done multiple short-term research roles, which she said was indicative of a job market where “there are so few lecturer positions currently being advertised”.
She said she had also received more informal contact requesting feedback than was usual, “probably reflecting the increasing competition for roles, and applicants’ desire to put together the strongest application possible”.
Mark Holleran, managing director at recruitment firm TalentEdu, said his firm had seen a “quite significant increase” in academics who are specifically enquiring about job opportunities, especially from lecturers and senior lecturers who have either been made redundant or told their roles are at risk.
However, complicating matters, Holleran said they had seen an increased interest in UK-based roles from US academics, who are looking to leave the country owing to the political climate under Donald Trump’s presidency.
“Previously, [US academics] wouldn’t have considered it, perhaps because of the salary differences, as they have much higher pay in the US. But now we’re finding they’re much more open to [accepting a role], particularly at the research-intensive universities. Which is probably not helpful for people who’ve been made redundant.”
The picture is more mixed for professional service roles. Christina Gray, managing director of Grey Recruitment Specialists, said, “Application numbers have become harder to predict” when these positions become available.
“Roles that don’t require prior HE experience often attract high volumes of candidates, but overall, we’re still seeing around a 50 per cent drop in application numbers compared to pre-Covid levels.”
These drops are typically occurring for roles in grades 4 to 6, with a salary of about £25,000 to £40,000. While Gray said that this is “not just [a trend] in the HE sector”, and that return-to-the-office mandates, which require non-academic staff to work part of their week on campus, have driven down demand more widely across sectors.
“We’re witnessing a marked increase in the number of experienced, high-calibre candidates entering the market, and not all of them have been made redundant.
Many are still employed but feel destabilised by the ongoing uncertainty in their institutions. They speak of rapid changes being made with little transparency, and an increasingly siloed way of working both at the individual and departmental level,” she said.
“There’s a sense that the traditional appeal of working in HE, the collaboration, security, and sense of mission, is fading for some.
As a result, more senior professionals are exploring opportunities outside the sector. We’re seeing considerable movement at senior levels, which is unusual and telling.”
Holleran agreed he had seen senior-level professional service staff who are looking at leaving the sector, especially HR directors, and chief operating officers in some cases, who are “dealing with really challenging situations where they are facing unions and maybe defending positions that they don’t necessarily want to be defending”.
