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Once more, with feeling
It is not, on the face of it, surprising that the University and College Union has ended the 2025-26 New JNCHES pay negotiation process by announcing a formal ballot on industrial action.
It is what generally tends to happen at the end of New JNCHES. It is why long delayed joint work on reviewing the pay spine, on types of contracts, on equality pay gaps, and on workload has – in practice – taken forward by employers alone.
There’s no constraints on the pay uplift unions can ask for other than the pragmatism of certain parts of their decision-making processes: the 2025-26 round “ask” of 3.5 per cent was originally going to be 8 per cent. Offers made by employers are constrained by the financial reality of what the financially weakest providers are able to pay, but are – even so – generally on the optimistic side. A deferral mechanism, once a rarely used last resort, is now commonplace, meaning impressive-sounding awards happen (uncompensated) many months after the start of the year in question.
Previous rounds of industrial action on pay have had mixed success. Since 2020 UCU has balloted members, or threatened to ballot members, every year.
Because employers understandably do not want to carry out joint work with people who are formally in dispute with them, each of these industrial actions has resulted in a delay in important work on pay-related terms and conditions.
This year, for the 2025-26 cycle, UCU and other unions will again ballot for industrial action having rejected the employers’ “final offer” of 1.4 per cent. As has become common, this will be a national aggregated ballot – with at least 50 per cent turnout required to unlock a UK wide strike at all 138 New JNCHES members.
There has been pushback within the union – with some factions arguing that a turnout of 32 per cent (and just 61 per cent of those responding indicating a willingness to take action) did not suggest a widespread appetite for action on pay. Indeed, many branches are currently in dispute over job losses and restructuring plans, and may prefer to focus on the immediate threat.
There does not appear to be anyone seriously arguing that the union ask (3.5 per cent or £2,500, whichever is higher) is affordable by employers. The financial problems faced by the sector are well-documented, and although there may be a small number of providers that could afford an enhanced pay settlement there are many more that cannot. Some are seeking to defer payment of even the modest increase on the table on the grounds of affordability.
It is true that 1.4 per cent is a real-terms pay cut (though annual increments and pay-scale progression will mean that a number of staff members will not experience it as such). It comes alongside an inflationary increase in tuition fees in England for the academic year in question (the first since 2017), though the majority of this additional income will be used to pay increased employer national insurance contributions.
The decision to seek a formal ballot (which will cost the union in the region of £250,000) was taken by the UCU Higher Education Committee (HEC) on 1 September. Employers have, of course, already begun to implement the “final offer” first published in May 2025 – with those employers able to afford to do so without deferral paying the 1.4 per cent increase from August 2025.
The next New JNCHES negotiations, for the 2026-27 pay round, will begin early in 2026.