'There’s no better job'

I agree that becoming an academic is the best job. You have a great deal of autonomy, the freedom to do cutting edge research which impacts positively on the individual and society, and you get to keep good intellectual company which keeps you alert, and helps you to become more open-minded. You also get to share new perspectives with students and other groups, and as a result, your respect is further enhanced. Oliver Mills

"It pays to be an academic during a recession" Unless, that is, you're an academic whose contract is expiring.

When I first arrived in the UK, I thought things were getting rough in the US for academics and that things here were still pretty good. Boy, was I wrong! The UK working conditions, level of bullying, and instrumentalist/managerialist mindset have far overtaken that which exists in the US in an amazingly short period of time.

#2 job in America? Probably correct - but with the security of tenure and higher salaries than the UK that's probably only true there. Retraining needs may serve us well with Masters students, but will it make up for the cuts on the horizon from government in the UK and shadow of redundancy? The freedom of choice is also perhaps more true for some than others - new universities just don't have the same funding or luxuries - all conspiring to increase stress all round.

I agree with Howard. Bullying is so entrenched in my institution (Russell Group) that it is seen as normal. Bullying by line managers is commonplace, harassment procedures inadequate, HR incompetent and ineffectual. Management dictate in a style reminiscent of Stalinist Russia and any deviation from The Party Line is a black mark against any individual prepared to stand up and be counted. It's an Orwellian vision of totalitarianism.

@Howard. I sympathise greatly with what happened to you. However, I am sure that you will agree that your experience is such that you cannot indict the whole system in the UK. I am sure that you will recognise the fact that good news is often unreported. A content staff is no news. That does not say that there is a degree of bullying in the system and mediocre management is commonplace. But there is good in the system.

Bee 8 November, 2009 "It pays to be an academic during a recession" Unless, that is, you're an academic whose contract is expiring. >>>>>>>>>>> Me too, Bee Less than months of secure job to go... Have tried for a job teaching my subject at a college of further education and didn't get an interview. Future does not look rosy at all, since I'm 50 now.

If it wasn't for the managers, universities would be great places to work. Well, actually, they are great anyway. Full of interesting people and well paid to boot. Fredrics and his crew need to realise it's not all like his 5% think.

Well paid? Compared to, say, (underpaid) nurses perhaps, but I have several friends, with lower qualifications than me, who earn more, or about the same, but got there in a shorter period of time. On average, I work a 45-hour week (including weekends), have to justify every move I make to a couple of senior managers, beg them for money to be able to go to conferences, etc., and pander to customer-students. It is pretty obvious to everyone in the UK HE sector that things will get even worse (maybe not for the managers). Yep, it's great to be an academic in England.

It's not a perfect world in UK HE, but ... complaining about a 45-hour week?

45 is an intersting figure to choose, £45k being the average academic salary...45 hour week - how many weeks a year?

@old lag - I agree completely that there are some very good things about the profession and very good places to work in UK HE. My experience and understanding, though undoubtedly colored by a difficult time in a previous job, is wider than you might, at first think, as I've listened to a variety of views from colleagues, as well as having served as an external examiner in several places. This having been said, I stand by my earlier comments as a reflection of a broad trend, which I believe is headed in the wrong direction. I am convinced that there are WAY too many institutions where academic freedom is on the wane, where workloads are excessive, where pressure to pass students is immense, if unspoken, and where the role of education is viewed as nothing more than a means to becoming a cog in the economic machine, both by student and management. These factors are the principal reasons why being an academic in the UK today is not all it's cracked up to be, and why it may very well be the case that it has reached the point where things look better elsewhere, either outside of academia in the UK or in academia elsewhere, particularly for new entrants into the job marketplace. This view is in no way intended to diminish what I know to be some very positive experiences for some folk in academia, particularly for those who've been at their job for a number of years, and/or where the university/department has managed to retain a positive ethos that values both staff and students.

I work for a post-92 university that a large part of the management would like to turn into a proper university. The academic staff have a different view. Mild suggestions that people lift a finger and, say, publish the odd paper every 5 years gets cries of "bullying!". We publish absolutely no details of our academic staff on the web, because it would be too embarassing: 90% or so are our former students, with only a bachelor's degree but hired at the SL level; but the rare hint that they could consider getting hire degrees gets howls of "bullying! harassment". Attempts to explain that the notional 38-week teaching period does not constitute the totality or a working year is considered an attempt to overwork them and a breach of contract. The sad list is endless, and the UCU for its part seems to go on the basis that anything from management is to be stymied. On a brighter note, when we enetered 3% of our academic staff in the RAE, and the work was judged to be 80% internationally excellent, we did get some expressions of gratitude, via the staff newsletter, which declared that research management was one very positive aspect of the university's managent: "80% OF OUR RESEARCH IS INTERNATIONALLY EXCELLENT!". Celebrations were held.

to: "another terrible manager" - of course I can't comment on your institution, but in our place , we academics have been absolutely fighting to get the breathing space to do research, in vain. Suddenly, it's flavour of the month as management look for income streams, and now we're commanded to do that very thing we were asking for. Good - we should all be now in agreement... wrong! We're still not given the resources, but are told we already had them - we just weren't using our time wisely. Look, it's not necessarily just UCU that is antipathetic towards management initiatives; this sort of 'top-down' imposition simply doesn't work. The reason for research actually is... research - it really is its own reason - not some new-fangled initiative to do with income streams, the next REF submission, etc. Those are someone else's reasons - in which case, let them get on with it, do the research themselves. The bullying charge comes up again and again simply because of this: in academia, the job of managers is not to tell academics what to do. We already have a full plate, we know what we have to get on with. Having a backseat driver - and one who is actually uninformed about driving - isn't helpful, it's harmful. However, many managers feel that justification for their position lies only in being seen to have caused something ("drivers for change" and all that) - the net result being that there are those who would actually prevent from happening any activity that they did not ordain. It is resistance to this kind of credit-claiming that is often seen as 'obstructive behaviour' which must, of course, be overcome by overwhelming force: "bullying".

The main trend in academic life nowadays is indeed bullying by the so-called managers (who have no knowledge of academic content and therefore use "audit descriptors and indicators" to "assess" and intimidate the professionals and "bring them into line", thus effectively abolishing academic freedom); together with short-term and part-term contracts, especially for younger academics, which both saves money and effectively enslaves them to the modish whims of the above-mentioned management stratum. As Richard Gombrich remarked some time ago (in "The Murder of a Profession"): the best a young academic can hope for is to emigrate.

Dear Don: It is a manager's job to tell people to do the job they are paid to do if they are not doing it; academia is no exception. I have now been head of department for 5 years and was brought in from the outside to try and change the sort of culture you get when thoroughly unprofessional and undisciplined people have had secure jobs for far too long. I still get the sort of comments that you make: Although until 2 years ago I was doing some teaching and I still am active in research, and bloody good at them too, am now considered "backseat driver - and one who is actually uninformed about driving". I am frequently told that people know what to do .... but they don't do it. Staff resent being told there is not enough money for conferences, new equipment, etc. ... but resent even more the idea that they could do something to improve our department's income. ("Research is for research!"; "teaching is for teaching!") Trying to get staff to make themselves available to students outside lectures got me into endless fights with the UCU, as has every initiative to lift us out of the sea of mediocrity. That's the people on "the coalface"; on the other side's the dean, who is another product of the same system, ... I have finally given up. Next year am heading into industry to make some money; btw, unlike academia, out there nobody has a cushy permanent job, and serious slackers simply getthe boot.

I'll count myself fortunate not to work a 60 hour week, never to have been bullied by management, and to have had a (half) decent level of understanding from (most) colleagues when I was in a senior management role. Compared to things I've done outside academia it's really not a bad job, and quite well paid, if bloody hard work and a bit relentless at times. But from others' opinions above it seems I'm fortunate enough to work in a decent University. It's a terrible position for fixed contract staff but I certainly don't recognise most of the other experiences as commonplace, or the hostile dichotomy with 'management', which seems a bit pointless coming from senior academics - we all end up taking our turn at being managers don't we? (unless you want to be self-employed).

HELI WRITES: "The main trend in academic life nowadays is indeed bullying by the so-called managers (who have no knowledge of academic content and therefore use "audit descriptors and indicators" to "assess" and intimidate the professionals and "bring them into line", thus effectively abolishing academic freedom)". PAUL WRITES: "the hostile dichotomy with 'management', which seems a bit pointless coming from senior academics - we all end up taking our turn at being managers don't we?"

@ A Terrible Manager: to clarify, the 45hrs refer to time spent in my office. It does not include the time I spend reading work-related materials elsewhere (e.g. marking essays or drafting funding applications at home on a Sunday morning). Even during the summer months I still easily work the 38hrs my contract stipulates, largely because that is the only time I can get on with my research projects in a meaningful manner. I have certainly had to work in jobs outside academia which I enjoyed less, but I have never had to work as many hours as I do now. I do accept that there are some 'established' colleagues, who feel they do not have to make an effort any more, if they ever did (@ Another terrible manager: I do recognise what you describe, and it annoys the hell out of me).

To: "another terrible manager" - obviously, we all have different experiences, and the culture at each place is different. But look, i spent more working years in industry, from the ground (working in factories) to management to own business, than I have in academia. It varies hugely out there, too. I always found (through failures a much as successes!) that if you find yourself in the position of having to tell people to do the job they're supposed to do - the battle is already more than half lost! But what I was on about was the reciprocal of that - managers arriving on the scene and trying to bully people into doing the job they've been fighting to try to do in spite of organisational shortcomings. It's in these cases that I mean "back seat drivers". In a sense, even with the best intentions, going over from academic to manager does mean losing touch with the heart of academia without gaining that much - at the lower end, the money's not that great and the pressures are irreconcilable. So, good luck, out there - pick a nice sized organisation that isn't under fierce financial pressure!

Like Paul, I have a reasonable working life. I enjoy my job, and I have been able to make a decent fist of most of the things I've been asked to do. I was bullied once, and I've worked with one or two people I don't like or respect. By and large I like the people I work with, and some of them are close friends. So my life isn't too bad. I do see though that many people have a very hard time, that they are treated very badly, and that they are miserable as a result. They seem to work at the following Universities. Gloucestershire; Anglia; Edinburgh; Southampton Solent; UCL, and Leeds met. So I'll keep away from those places.

Managers requesting staff to do work may be bullying... but the bullying that I believe that I have experienced in my research rich university is far more subtle, insidious and difficult to detect...and maybe stems from managers' insecurities. Bullying is complex and the way that my university and UCU have responded to the issues that I have raised suggested we still have a very long way to go in even being able to acknowledge that bullying exists.

I beg to differ, I just came across the BEST JOB IN THE WORLD (marketed as the second best job in the world, a take on the best job in the world campaign from Australia). The European price comparison website, www.LetsBuyIt.com is searching to hire an International Shopping Consultant. The chosen candidate will spend one month traveling and shopping in 7 major cities (such as: Paris, London, New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong etc...) and will be given €10000 for shopping and a monthly salary of €5000 not to mention they will travel business class and stay in top hotels then there only responsibility is to shop and keep a blog! Sound like the PERFECT job!!!