Academic Tenure and Employment in the Uk

Abstract

In this paper, my aim is to describe the growth of the academic profession in the UK, and to give an account of the security of tenure—or lack of it—of academic staff. In the early part of this century, while tenure was common among the professoriate, junior academic staff experienced considerable job insecurity. Although tenure for academic staff gradually became the norm, there are considerable doubts about how cast-iron tenure was, if put to the test as in the Edgar Page case. Recent employment trends in UK universities have been characterized by casualization and the statutory phasing out of tenure. In this article, the UK means England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; Britain generally means England, Scotland and Wales.