College pay leads to vacancy crisis

The UCU lecturers’ union slammed both government and college leaders after a report showed that college staff vacancies were at their highest in 20 years.

The damning report was produced by the employers themselves. A survey by the Association of Colleges (AoC), which describes itself as the “national voice for colleges”, revealed what it called “some worrying findings”.

It found there are now an estimated 6,000 job vacancies in England’s colleges, “with high levels of persistent vacancies in priority areas such as construction, engineering, health and social care and science and maths”.

The AoC called for more government funds to improve staff pay, a point amplified by the UCU. But the union’s general secretary, Jo Grady, also said that “college leaders are not blameless in all of this ... even after recent increases in funding for colleges, [they] refused to offer staff any more than a paltry 1%.”

https://www.aoc.co.uk/news/worst-staffing-crisis-in-two-decades-in-englands-colleges