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Dear colleagues,

I am writing to you to provide an update on this year’s pay award following negotiations at a national level between the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) and the recognised trade unions. This will be paid into the next salary payment in September for non-clinical staff on the national single pay spine*, backdated to 1 August 2024.

Base salary rise

As per our update in July, UCEA, which negotiates pay levels nationally on behalf of around 140 universities, made a final pay offer to unions of between 2.5% and 5.7% uplift to 2024/25 pay, with the uplift again weighted to give those at the lower end of the pay spine a greater increase. That is, pay point 5 to 22 (inclusive), will receive a total of £1,200 per annum uplift and pay point 23 to 37 (inclusive) will receive a total of £1,150 per annum uplift (full time equivalent). Staff at spine point 38 and above (including Grade 10) will receive 2.5% of their basic salary. This effectively means pay point 5 will receive a 5.7% uplift which gradually tapers to 2.5% at pay point 38 (UCL Grade 8) and above.

The pay offer has been split into two tranches. First an uplift on base salary of £900 for all (full time equivalent), effective from the 1st August 2024. Then effective from 1st March 2025 the remainder, up to the percentage to be applied to the specific spine point, will be paid.

London allowance rise

We will also increase the UCL London allowances by 2.5% from 1st August 2024. This means that in total (combining the base salary and London allowance rise) all non-clinical staff will receive an increase of just over £1,000 from 1st August 2024.

As yet the negotiations were not able to achieve an agreement on pay, but we have been informed by UCEA that, now that the dispute resolutions proceedings have ceased, we should proceed with implementing the August pay award. We are conscious to deliver the increase as soon as possible for our staff. The new pay scale effective from August is live here.

UCEA have confirmed that the cost the base salary rise to the sector is 2.5% this year but will have a recurring cost of 3% in all future years.

The national pay award is one aspect of the overall reward package for our staff, which also incorporates benefits, leave, pension and incremental progression. In addition to the national pay award, 67% of non-clinical staff in Grades 1-9 will also have received an automatic increment in August 2024 which adds an additional 3% (on average) to their base salaries. This is in addition to the improvements we announced last year as part of the multi-year £110.2m investment in staff reward. That included introducing financial support for researchers with their visa costs, changes to the pay scale which means staff will move through to higher maximum salaries within their grades and significant increases to London allowance in 2023. This year we have also increased the minimum of our professorial range (2.5%) and opened up rebanding opportunities for our Professors (Teaching) and Professorial Research Fellows. Further changes to the maximum of Grade 8 and Grade 9 will take place in 2025 and 2026, opening up further progression within those grades.

UCEA and trade union colleagues have also taken part in discussions on other important associated issues including a revised/refreshed pay spine, contract types, workload and pay gaps. We will continue to keep you updated on anything that emerges from that.

*The national pay award will be applied to the basic salaries of all staff under the remit of national pay. This includes all non-clinical staff on the UCL, IoE, SoP, MRC, MRC Prion scale and UoL scales.