Keele University Staff Face Potential Job Losses, Union Reports

A union has reported that close to 100 staff members at a university are spending their Christmas break concerned about potential job losses in the new year. Keele UCU (University and College Union) stated that the Staffordshire institution has put forward a proposal for compulsory redundancies, potentially affecting 30 to 35 teaching and research staff who could lose their positions in 2025. The union further indicated that the schools of Humanities and Social Sciences are expected to be the most significantly impacted, with up to 24 roles being eliminated. Keele University commented that universities are experiencing severe financial strain and confirmed it is consulting with colleagues who may be potentially affected by proposals aimed at reducing staffing levels. Keele UCU specified that the job reductions would occur across four schools, including Keele Business School and Allied Health Professions and Pharmacy. The union also expressed that there were “serious questions about the quality of teaching and experience that students will get after so many teaching staff are culled”. According to the union, the university is operating a voluntary redundancy scheme until January and has stated that if an insufficient number of staff opt for it, a process for selecting staff for compulsory redundancies would commence in March. In a statement, the university affirmed that the entire sector in the UK is facing severe financial strain, “largely because tuition fees were not increased to keep up with inflation for almost a decade”. It further noted that international student recruitment has become increasingly unreliable, partly due to the government’s policy on visas. The university also indicated that shifts in student preferences regarding study subjects and locations have resulted in insufficient student numbers in some of its subject areas to sustain the current level of academic staff employed. Consequently, it is consulting with colleagues who would be potentially affected by proposals “to reduce staffing levels in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences”. The university stated: “We are not proposing to close any subject areas at Keele and any reductions would still maintain favourable ratios of staff to students, thus safeguarding the student experience.”