A lack of career progression within UK universities is ¡°demoralising¡± staff and threatening to push people out of the sector, it has been warned, as institutions respond to the financial crisis by freezing promotions and concentrating hiring on lower-level positions.

Newcastle and Essex universities as well as the universities of Aberdeen, Worcester and Edinburgh, have all been forced to delay or cancel promotions in recent years, as they look to cut costs in response to the financial crisis, on top of the?wave of redundancies.

Gregor Gall, an industrial relations expert who is a visiting professor at the universities of Glasgow and Leeds, said such measures may be effective in bringing down short-term costs, but it risks people leaving the sector.?

New positions are increasingly being advertised at lecturer level with a cap on the highest spine point available to the successful candidate, he said, adding that ¡°vacancies arising from natural turnover are not being filled¡±.

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¡°This will undoubtedly demotivate staff who rightly seek the professional recognition and financial rewards they deserve. What will demotivate them even more is that they cannot easily go elsewhere in the current situation to get a promoted post at another university because of the overall freeze on recruitment,¡± he said.

¡°How long some can wait for a thaw to set in is not clear, but it does run the risk of people leaving the sector altogether. ¡®Just¡¯ having a job is unlikely to be sufficient to keep them contented.¡±

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Newcastle¡¯s latest promotions freeze, after it took a similar action during the pandemic, comes as it?looks to fill a ?35 million hole in its budget. Staff are yet to be told whether it will continue into the next academic year, despite a window for promotions due in September.?

Loes Veldpaus, secretary of the Newcastle University and College Union branch, said that the promotions freeze on top of the redundancy process has made staff ¡°lose a lot of goodwill towards the university¡±, adding that there was no indication of whether the university will accept a greater number of promotion applications when it ends.

She added that it comes on top of the?Universities and Colleges Employers Association¡¯s final pay offer of 1.4 per cent,?¡°which really shows a lack of respect and value for people who will educate the new generation¡±. Ucea has said the offer is at the limit of what the sector can afford.

A Newcastle University spokesperson said the promotions freeze ¨C alongside other measures ¨C ¡°has enabled us to avoid compulsory redundancies¡±.

"We know that our future success is fundamentally linked to the talent and contribution of all of our colleagues and we are reviewing a range of options for reinstating promotion and reward processes in a way that is both responsible and sustainable,¡± the spokesperson added.

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In some cases, while an official promotions freeze might not be in place, the fear of redundancy may be putting staff off applying for promotions. Nicholas Grant, co-chair of the University of East Anglia UCU branch, said that academics and professional services staff have been ¡°scared¡± to get a promotion in case it made them more likely to be pooled for redundancy.

¡°We¡¯re hearing from members all the time that they¡¯re holding back from putting through promotions applications because they think that moving from a lecturer to an associate professor, or from a grade five to a grade seven role, would put them at more risk of redundancy in the future.¡±

A UEA spokesperson said that it ¡°understands that the challenging environment in HE and the need to make savings has had an impact on colleagues, however, we continue to support academic promotions, and we are still seeing high-quality staff pursuing career progression at UEA¡±.

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Elsewhere at Manchester Metropolitan University ¨C which has not undergone any recent redundancies ¨C staff have complained that career progression is being stalled through a rigid pathways route, which they have no control over.

Staff are either employed on research or education contracts, with the latter having no paid research time. In a??carried out by the UCU branch of 331 academic staff members, only 34.7 per cent of respondents said that they felt confident that their current pathway will help them to develop their career in the way they wanted. Some 40.5 per cent disagreed that they felt confident their current pathway would help them to be competitive if they wanted to move to another university.

¡°It just really limits people¡¯s career options¡­There¡¯s the feeling that [staff] are feeling de-professionalised, and that the scope of what an academic role is, on both pathways, is just being limited now,¡± said John Deeney, the co-chair of the university¡¯s UCU branch.

A Manchester Met spokesperson said: ¡°we remain committed to investing in career progression for academics and?we have just promoted 91 colleagues across both pathways. There are no limits on opportunities for career?progression.¡±

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juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com