COLLEGE bosses have received pay rises four times higher than were recommended by the sector’s employer body, the University and College Union (UCU) reveals today.

Qualified lecturers have, meanwhile, struggled on as little as £26,000 — well below Britain’s average salary of £31,876.

The UCU analysis comes as strike ballots are set to open at 89 further education colleges across England next week amid anger at low pay and poor working conditions.

The union, which is demanding a pay offer in excess of the retail prices index rate of inflation, a national workload agreement and binding national pay negotiations, has found that 26 principals at English colleges received pay rises above 10 per cent in 2021-22. 

The average increase was 4 per cent — quadruple the 1 per cent recommended by the Association of Colleges for staff in that year.

Weston College principal Paul Phillips’s pay grew to a whopping £362,000 last year, with a basic salary now 9.6 times his full-time workforce’s median wage, according to the FE Week website.

At the same time, college staff salaries have fallen 35 per cent behind inflation over the past 12 years, the union said yesterday.

UCU general secretary Jo Grady urged bosses to “rein in their own salaries,” adding that it was “completely unacceptable” that the Association of Colleges had not made any pay recommendations for the coming year, despite there being additional government funding for further education institutions on an “equivalent” basis to the school funding for teachers’ 6.5 per cent increase.

“Our analysis shows the money is there for college bosses to raise pay and treat staff fairly,” Ms Grady added.

“Our members are well aware their pay is being held down while college principals rake in more than ever and next week they will begin voting to strike in our biggest-ever college ballot.”