Growing numbers of black academics quitting for private sector

Experts concerned exodus could be linked to lack of career progression for minority scholars

March 28, 2024
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The number of black academics quitting UK universities for the private sector has nearly tripled in recent years.

Seventy black academics left for the private sector in the 2021-22 academic year, compared with 25 in 2019-20, according to previously unpublished Higher Education Statistics Agency (Hesa) data.

There has been a general rise in the number of academics of all backgrounds leaving for the private sector, from 1,500 in 2019-20 to 2,515 in 2021-22. While the number of black academics leaving the sector is small, diversity experts are concerned the exodus could be linked to a lack of career support for ethnic-minority scholars.

Ifedapo Francis Awolowo, a senior lecturer in financial and management accounting at Sheffield Hallam University, said black scholars too often saw white colleagues leapfrogging them on the career ladder.

“I know some [black] colleagues who have done some remarkable work and yet, when it’s time for promotion, they apply to be [a] professor and they don’t get it. So they feel if they go into industry at least that pays more money,” Dr Awolowo said.

“It’s a trend that I’m concerned about. As much as we’re trying to fix the broken pipeline, to attract more black scholars to come into the academy, it is sad to see that the few black academics in the sector are leaving.”

Nelarine Cornelius, professor of organisation studies at Queen Mary University of London, pointed out that ethnic-minority academics were often more likely to work in areas with greater potential industry crossover, such as business, accountancy, law and medicine.

But she said that discriminatory promotion processes could also be a factor in black academics’ decisions to quit.

“In a lot of universities, it’s still very partial. The processes are largely informal in terms of how you’re promoted and who supports you for promotion. And that can become very frustrating [for black academics],” Professor Cornelius said.

At the end of 2022 there were 7,295 black academics working in UK universities, up from 5,205 in 2020, according to Hesa data.

“It is worth noting the increase that we see in black academics, including a 25 per cent increase in black professors this year, and that at least some part of the jump in numbers [in black academics quitting] reflects this continuous increase in black academics, particularly in the lower stages of the pipeline, where attrition is most likely to be seen,” said David Bass, director of equality, diversity and inclusion at Advance HE.

rosa.ellis@timeshighereducation.com

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Reader's comments (3)

The bias in recruitment and progression in HE is horrendous, not just on racial or gender grounds, but with senior managers recruiting colleagues from their previous institutions blocking avenues of promotion for existing staff. With the constant erosion of pay and the worsening of conditions, its a wonder many more staff haven't left for much more lucrative salaries in the private sector,
Indeed. It is 'who you know', not 'what you know' in the recruitment and progression at universities. Sad state of affairs.
It does also need to be remembered that there aren't that many opportunities for promotion on academic routes in the first place. The vast majority of academic staff in UK universities end up at senior lecturer level and sit at that ceiling for decades. And as much as universities do indeed add-on senior management non-academic jobs to place some academic staff (and thus an area minority colleagues are genuinely missing out on in many places), universities also can't just keep spending money they don't have by promoting academic staff to professorial posts for the sake of esteem or "doing really good work". There simply aren't enough specialist roles for academic staff in universities to have viable promotion routes. Most roles an academic does beyond the standard expectation of teaching and research that would consider promotion and a slightly higher salary in most sectors are simply freely done bolt-ons to the basic job in HE; module leader, course leader, champion, coordinator, pathway lead etc. So I can see why black academics are leaving - the filter from standard academic narrows pretty fast pretty early, reducing opportunities and highlighting the mechanisms of promotion selection suggested in the article

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