Last week, the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) confirmed that this year’s formal pay negotiation meetings have now concluded, following constructive engagement with the joint higher education trade unions. Following the conclusion of this negotiation stage, UCEA have now written to the joint trade unions with a full and final offer.

In brief, the final offer includes:

– A phased approach, ultimately delivering pay uplifts ranging from 2.5% to 5.7%, with higher uplifts being distributed towards the lower spine points

– Effective 1 August 2024, an uplift of ?900 to be applied to all spine point values

– Effective 1 March 2025, the balance of the uplift to be added to spine point values to complete the pay settlement

– the offer also includes a number of other items including Terms of Reference for proposed national work on pay spine reform, contract types, equality pay gaps and workload.

The trade unions will now consider their position on the offer, and we await further communication regarding the outcome, which we will communicate in due course. This is not yet an agreed pay settlement outcome, we have not yet been instructed to implement it.

You can read the full detail of the final offer on UCEA’s website.