The University and College Union (UCU) attacked employers recently for “blighting” UK higher education by putting the majority of new staff on temporary contracts, five years after new regulations were agreed, designed to make more jobs permanent.

A UCU survey of research jobs in UK universities shows that short-term contracts remain the norm for staff beginning their careers–96.5 percent of the posts were found to be fixed-term. University employers would argue that they can only take on research staff when they have funding for a particular project. When that money runs out, they can no longer afford to keep staff on.

But the findings contradict guidance agreed in 2002 by the employers’ body, the University and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA), and trade unions, which stated that “indefinite contracts should be the normal form of employment.”

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