HE negotiations 2025-26

Updates

31 March 2025

Click here for a list of UCU branches that are involved in the Joint Negotiating Committee for Higher Education Staff (JNCHES) for the 2025-26 UK-wide higher education negotiations on pay and working conditions.

The list of participating higher education institutions was shared by UCEA with the joint higher education trade unions ahead of the first negotiating meeting on 31 March 2025.

10 March 2025

The joint higher education trade unions' full claim for 2025-26 was sent to UCEA on 10 March 2025.

25 February 2025

The joint higher education trade unions' (Unite, UNISON, UCU, GMB and EIS) 'Heads of claim' for 2025-26 was sent to the employers' representatives Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) on 25 February 2025.

Meeting dates for 2025-26

The three negotiating meeting dates for the 2025-26 pay round are as follows:

• Monday 31 March 2025
• Wednesday 16 April 2025
• Thursday 15 May 2025.

Joint higher education unions heads of claim 2025-26

The heads of claim can also be downloaded here as a PDF.

We are seeking the restoration of our members' lost pay. Below inflation pay rises over the past decade have resulted in members' losing up to 30% of the value of their pay.

• We are calling on UCEA for:
  • an increase on all pay points of at least RPI (as at August 2025) + 3.5%, or a flat rate increase on each spine point of at least £2,500 (whichever is greater)
  • equivalent percentage rises to London Weighting and any other allowances
  • a new minimum pay rate of £15 an hour
  • all institutions to become Foundation Living Wage employers and for all pay points below the FLW to be deleted
  • a commitment to an urgent and comprehensive reform of the New JNCHES pay spine.
• To restore the offer from 2024-25 to develop joint agreements on workload, contract types/casualisation, pay spine reform, and tackling the gender, disability and ethnicity pay gaps using the previous jointly agreed terms of reference.

The recent increases in the national Living Wage have made the need for pay spine reform in the sector even more urgent and we are calling on UCEA to re-convene the previously agreed pay spine review working group at the earliest opportunity with a view to include recommendations that can be in place from August 2025.

Agree to take forward the other areas of joint work discussed as part of the 2024-25 pay negotiating round, included in the UCEA pay offer for 2024-25 and then withdrawn by UCEA; gender inequalities in pension provision, a Green New Deal and Just Transition, the migrant salary threshold/associated visa costs and on term time only contracts.

The unions also call on UCEA to undertake further joint work to avoid redundancies, course closures, and cuts to academic disciplines across the sector, and to lobby politically for a sustainable long term funding settlement for the sector.

The trade union claim will also call on UCEA to:

• recommend that institutions move all staff onto a 35-hour week, with no loss in pay, to be implemented at institutional level
• commit to the protection of national agreements relating to terms and conditions of employment including the Post-92 national contract and HE2000
• establish the Scottish sub-committee of New JNCHES as set out under the New JNCHES agreement
• call upon universities to reimburse all visa application and application-adjacent fees for migrant workers and ensure that the pay spine is appropriate for the new government-mandated pay thresholds for skilled worker visas.