MORE than 70,000 lecturers at 150 UK universities are to launch “an unprecedented programme of escalating strike action” over pay, conditions and employers’ attacks on their pensions.

Members of the University and College Union (UCU) will strike for 18 days in February and March and are to reballot for a further mandate for action for most of 2023.

They also plan to boycott marking and assessments from April.

UCU said a decade of pay freezes and below-inflation pay rises has cut lecturers’ real-terms income by more than 20 per cent.

The union said pension scheme changes will reduce retirement income by 35 per cent, while lecturers at the beginning of their careers will lose hundreds of thousands of pounds. 

Yet university vice-chancellors are pocketing average salaries of £269,000, and in some cases more than £500,000.

Employers have proposed a pay increase of 4 to 5 per cent for lecturers, but was rejected at a meeting with the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) on Wednesday.

The lecturers want a pay increase in line with current inflation, which in December stood at 10.7 per cent.

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: “Today our union came together to back an unprecedented programme of escalating strike action. 

“The clock is now ticking for the sector to produce a deal or be hit with widespread disruption throughout spring.

“University staff dedicate their lives to education and they want to get back to work, but that will only happen if university vice-chancellors use the vast wealth of the sector to address over a decade of falling pay, rampant insecure employment practices and devastating pension cuts. The choice is theirs.”

Raj Jethwa, chief executive of employers’ group the UCEA, said: “The fact that UCU is not calling indefinite strike action is welcome, but their revised strike plans could still have a damaging impact on students.

“While employers have a great deal of sympathy with staff coping with financial pressures, none could offer a pay award that would get close to current levels of inflation.”

Dates for the strike have yet to be announced. The union has set up a UCU Fighting Fund at www.ucu.org.uk/fightingfund.