PhD students to get parental leave, but no support with childcare costs

In August, Liz Kendall announced that research organisations and universities signed up to the Women in Research Charter will guarantee paid parental leave to PhD students with stipends.

Kendall said this will relieve the financial stress on PhD students who are parents.

As a woman who has had two children during my PhD, I welcome the news that more PhD students will get paid parental leave – like I did from the Economic and Social Research Council. I am also hopeful that interest in PhD parental leave means ministers will take action to ensure that visa rules do not stop international PhD students from accessing parental leave.

However, parental leave for PhD students will not adequately relieve the financial burden that parents face doing PhDs. We still need financial support with childcare costs.

The cost of childcare

Childcare in England is a heavy financial burden for PhD students who have children. A PhD stipend is around £21,805 per year. In 2026, on average, the cost of full-time nursery per year for a PhD parent with an under two year old is £372.06 per week. This amounts to over £14,000 for a term-time only place or over £19,000 for a term-time and holiday-time place.

As Jamie Evans and the GW4 have highlighted, PhD students pay such a high cost for childcare because they are excluded from childcare financial support that employed parents receive.

Parents who do at least 16 hours per week at minimum wage and earn no more than £100,000 get access to 30 free hours of childcare and tax free childcare. Such benefits cut the cost of childcare substantially. In 2026, it is estimated that the average cost of nursery for an under two year old when parents receive 30 free hours of childcare and tax-free childcare is £148.82 per week. That amounts to £5,655.16 for a term-time place. PhD students do not qualify for this financial support even if they are working full time and have a stipend.

This is because their stipends are tax-free.

Not qualifying for financial support with childcare means that PhD students are spending substantially more on childcare than those with higher incomes. Considering what professors and PhD students pay for childcare brings this into focus.

In early September 2026, Indeed estimated that the average salary for a professor in the UK who works full-time is £76,354 which is more than triple the £21,805 UKRI PhD stipend. Professors earning this amount will qualify for financial support with childcare. This means that on average for an under two year-old, they pay £5,655.16 for a term-time place per year. This is around £8,483.28 less than what a PhD student will pay for the same amount of childcare.

This situation is clearly not fair.

Putting in an extra shift

In theory, PhD parents can take on paid work to access childcare benefits. If they regularly do 16 hours of paid work per week at minimum wage, they will be taxed and qualify for tax-free childcare and free hours of childcare. I have done this during parts of my PhD to qualify for the benefits.

However, taking on extra paid work is not a solution. Managing PhD work with the demands of parenting and additional taxable employment is difficult and the jobs available to PhD students in universities are often short-term and precarious.

This makes it hard to guarantee that PhD parents will earn enough additional income to qualify for financial support with childcare.

Not even a loan

Ministers have suggested that PhD students should use the government-funded Doctoral Loan to pay for their childcare, but this isn’t a solution. The loan is not open to PhD students who receive stipends. And PhD students getting into debt so they can do their research only adds to their financial strain.

MPs have also floated the idea of PhD parents getting a childcare grant. The Childcare Grant, gives undergraduate parents up to £199.62 per week for childcare costs for one child. To be eligible, undergraduates need a household income of less than £20,107.23. The grant would help some PhD students but it would still leave PhD parents who have a partner who earns even one penny more than the threshold in the lurch.

Picking up the slack

The problem must be addressed by both government and universities.

The government should make tax-free childcare and free hours of childcare available to parents who are PhD students with equal access for “home” and “international” PhD students. And by making childcare – or really what we should call early years education – accessible to all children, PhD parents would be better supported.

For universities, they need to advocate for students to get financial support with childcare from the government. And in terms of data collection, they should lobby to include a question in the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey about how many PGRs have childcare responsibilities. This data will help the sector to understand how many PhDs/PGRs need better support with childcare costs. This is something colleagues have already called for.

The announcement that PhD students will get paid parental leave is positive. For this policy initiative to make sense though, it needs to be linked up with PhD students getting financial support with childcare. Without making childcare more affordable for PhD students, the government risks excluding parents from pursuing PhDs.