Dear Colleagues,
I hope you are well. I’m continuing to have daily conversations with staff about the pressures of the increase in costs of living and realise that everyone is struggling at the moment.
As a University, I would like to confirm that, subject to national bargaining, we are strongly supporting a 5 per cent increase in pay in the next national pay settlement, which equates to an 8 per cent pay increase over two years, and up to 14 per cent for those on our lower salary scales. This is in addition to our local pay increase of 21 per cent to London Weighting which we agreed in August 2022.
We are also supporting bringing forward some of this year’s pay settlement to enable us to make some of the pay award (2 per cent) in the New Year, with the rest to follow as usual in August 2023. As you know, pay awards are negotiated at a national level and these increases are subject to that national bargaining process, but I wanted to be clear with you what Queen Mary’s position was within the sector. I will keep you abreast of the ongoing sector-level negotiations when they are made public. These increases should also be seen alongside the significant percentage of salary that is paid by the University towards staff pensions. For those in the USS pension scheme (our largest scheme), currently this is 21.6 per cent of salary.
I would also like to thank you very much for your continued hard work. Working together, we have achieved so much this year, which is a result of the incredible work of everyone across our University. In recognition of this and the pressures felt by all our staff we have agreed an extra closure day at Christmas: we will break up at the end of the day on Wednesday 21 December*.
I will write again when there is a further update to share.
Best wishes,
Colin
Professor Colin Bailey, CBE, FREng, BEng, PhD, CEng, FICE, FIStructE, MIFireEPresident and Principal
*FAQs will be published later this week that confirm arrangements for staff who normally work during the closure period.