Oxford Economic Papers Advance Access published online on March 26, 2009
Oxford Economic Papers, doi:10.1093/oep/gpp004
© Oxford University Press 2009 All rights reserved
Higher education academic salaries in the UK
*Henley Business School at the University of Reading, Department of Management and Centre for International Business History, University of Reading Business School, PO Box 218, Whiteknights, Reading, RG6 6AA;
Institute of Education, University of London
Correspondence: e-mail: j.t.walker{at}henley.reading.ac.uk
JEL classifications: I20, I23, I28.
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Abstract |
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It is widely believed that higher education academic salaries are too low, and that this may lead to a ‘brain drain’ and also lower quality in higher education, as universities fail to attract the ‘brightest and the best’. We compare the salaries of higher education teaching professionals in the UK with those of other comparable professionals. We compare academic salaries to a range of occupational groupings that one might view as similar, in terms of unobserved characteristics, to academics. We conclude that HE teaching professionals earn lower earnings than most public sector graduates and do particularly poorly compared to most other comparable professionals. In particular, academic earnings compare poorly to those in the legal professions, consultant physicians and dental practitioners (across both the public and private sectors). On the other hand, some public sector workers do worse than HE academics, e.g. FE teachers.