HEC Discussion Paper: terms and conditions of teaching-focused posts
By Matilda Fitzmaurice
12th February 2026
Introduction
There are huge numbers of academic staff employed on fixed-term contracts in the UK HE sector. According to HESA, there were 71,715 fixed-term academic staff and 33,880 hourly-paid academic staff employed in 2023/2024. HESA data also shows a large number of teaching-only staff employed in the sector: 87,140 in 2023/2024, of which 30,860 were fixed-term and 56,280 were open-ended [1]. However, while UCU has done a lot of work around fixed-term, research-only staff [2] as well as postgraduate researchers [3], less is known about the employment conditions of workers in teaching-only, or teaching-focused, academic posts. In addition to providing context, this paper proposes strategies for initial data-gathering.
The problem:
Fixed-term, teaching-only contracts are often used for cover for research grants or for periods of open-ended staff leave. Colleagues employed in these posts are often overworked with teaching while left without support in other areas of their career. Fixed-term, teaching-only posts offer poor career development opportunities, because they provide no paid research time or in some cases basic support for research (e.g. use of institutional affiliation, mentorship, time for professional development and access to annual research, travel, conference or engagement funds). Teaching-focused or teaching-only staff are often prevented from applying to grants at all, as universities refuse to manage such grants if they are awarded, meaning they are restricted to the few schemes that accept applications from ‘independent scholars’ (those not affiliated with an HE institution). Furthermore, fixed-term, teaching-only colleagues are often excluded from other areas of department or school-level activity, as well as basic structures and policies that apply to all open-ended staff (e.g. PDRs).
Three questions:
- Can teaching-only/teaching-focused staff access teaching-centred career development, and do they have structured, supported provision for this?
- Can teaching-only/teaching-focused staff access opportunities to do research or build other areas of their profile/professional development, and do they have structured, supported provision for this?
- Could there be a move towards common provisions for all fixed-term staff, with less emphasis on a research/teaching divide?
UCU has already done significant work on the terms and conditions of research-only staff as a large proportion of the casualised workers in Higher Education, meaning there is a clear case for a similar initiative for teaching-focused and teaching-only staff. This work has already begun: at the Annual Meeting of Members on Casualised Contracts in February 2026, there will be a workshop titled ‘Towards a fixed-term teaching staff manifesto’. However, there is currently a lack of data on the concrete terms and conditions of such posts, and how these may compare across types of institution, devolved geographies and subject/discipline areas. More broadly, this should be seen in the context of an anticipation [4] that teaching and research activities will be further separated, both on the level of institutions and of individual careers.
Context:
Existing frameworks to support the continuing professional development of HE staff include the 2023 Professional Standards Framework from Advance HE [5] (formerly the Higher Education Academy). There is also a specific initiative to support the career development of researchers. This is the Researcher Concordat [6], to which Universities UK and many UK HEIs are signatories, but there is no comparable framework for the career development of teaching-only or teaching-focused staff, especially if they are fixed-term. However, while the career development provisions in the Researcher Concordat are limited, it could nonetheless provide a model.
Other stakeholders, such as learned societies, have begun to grapple with insecure employment as a sector-wide, structural problem. According to recently published research [7] funded by the Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG), fixed-term contracts often lead to stalled career progression and exclusion from the sector, as these posts offer limited opportunities for professional development. It found that fixed-term staff frequently find themselves stuck in a cycle of short-term contracts regardless of their teaching and research contributions.
These findings bear out what we know from UCU’s anti-casualisation and equalities work: that the consequences of precarious employment are most adverse for people who are already marginalised in Higher Education (e.g. Black or racialised people, women, LGBTQ+ people, disabled people, people with caring responsibilities and people without existing financial support from family and/or a partner). As a result, precarious employment has serious implications for the diversity of academic disciplines and of the types of research conducted within them. Given UCU’s record on both equalities and anti-casualisation work, the inequalities produced and exacerbated by teaching-focused posts with poor terms and conditions should be a priority for the union to address.
Possibilities for alternatives and better practice:
- Career Development Fellowships: teaching contracts that are longer than the underlying cover need, providing additional research or career development time and support. Durham University [8] uses a model that may serve as a template.
- The Open University Associate Lecturer model [9]. This resulted from an agreement in 2022 that marked the largest programme of decasualisation ever to take place in the Higher Education sector. As a result, 4,800 previously casualised Associate Lecturers were moved onto secure contracts that provided a pay uplift, additional annual leave and staff development allowances [10]. However, there is so far no data on whether this is working as hoped, and anecdotal evidence from Als suggests that the teaching/research divide remains entrenched.
- Workforce planning: actively anticipating and managing teaching cover needs with the aim of meeting them within the open-ended staff population. Precarious employment is inefficient and presents significant workload implications for open-ended staff: for example, at many institutions it can take weeks to hire an hourly-paid or fixed-term lecturer.
Initial data collection ideas:
- Develop an online survey directed at members on teaching-focused and teaching-only contracts, with the aim of producing a mix of quantitative and qualitative data.
- Organise focus groups and/or one-to-one interviews with members employed on teaching-only and teaching-focused academic contracts.
- Conduct desk-based research collating and comparing teaching-focused/T&S job descriptions from different HEIs. This could involve using publicly available information, such as person specifications and job descriptions published online when roles are advertised. It could also involve sending FoI requests to HEIs to ask for any policies/resources they may have created in support of career development for teaching-focused/teaching-only staff.
References:
[2] See for example the launch of the Researcher Manifesto in February 2025: https://wonkhe.com/manifesto-launched-as-data-shows-over-6-in-10-university-research-staff-denied-permanent-jobs/
[3] See for example the PGRs As Staff campaign, launched in 2020: https://www.ucu.org.uk/PGRs-as-staff
[4] For example, the president of City St Georges, University of London recently made a case for the further separation of research and teaching. See https://profserious.substack.com/p/for-everything-to-stay-the-same-everything
[5] See https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/teaching-learning/professional-standards-framework