Starting Tuesday 10th February, University of Bristol staff will take part in three consecutive days of industrial action. The strikes are organised by the University’s UNISON branch, representing professional services staff including admin workers, library staff, IT services, and student support.
Public rallies are planned for 12 p.m. on Tuesday 10th at Senate House, BS8 1TH, and 12 p.m. on Thursday 12th at Wills Memorial Building, BS8 1RJ. UNISON encourage and welcome public support at these rallies.
Industrial action follows the University’s implementation of a below-inflation salary increase of 1.4% for staff in 2025/26. This equals a real-terms pay cut of at least 2.5% at a time when staff increasingly struggle with cost-of-living pressures. This is the 17th consecutive pay cut since 2009.
Since 2014, the average monthly private rent in Bristol has increased from £647 to £1,889, an increase of 192%. In the same 11-year period, an average staff member’s salary has increased from ~£25,759 to ~£33,002, an increase of only 28%.
Bristol is a top 10 UK University and 51st in the world (QS Rankings 2026) – an achievement impossible without its professional services staff. Yet senior leadership consistently responds to financial pressure through real-terms pay cuts, recruitment freezes, and restructures resulting in job losses and increased staff workloads.
Meanwhile, Professor Evelyn Welch, as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bristol, earns £312,581 a year – approximately 847% higher than the average staff salary of £33,002. She is also provided with free accommodation at the University’s official residence in Clifton, and over £4,500 in annual expenses.
UNISON members are calling on Welch to back their call for negotiations between the Universities and Colleges Employers Association and the Joint Higher Education Unions to be reopened. They ask for further consideration on the request for an increase on all pay points of at least RPI (as of August 2025) + 3.5%, or a flat rate increase on each employee spine point of at least £2,500 – whichever is greater.
Co-Branch Secretaries Nathan Street and Alexander Kidd say:
“We have been asked to work too hard for too long with workloads rising as wages drop. With the higher education sector facing an unprecedent crisis of funding, it has been deemed by the Senior Management that the majority of low paid staff should bear the financial burden. This is a choice, not a necessity. We have continually highlighted the pay compression occurring for the lowest paid in our current spine point system and the ongoing need for reform as the University struggles to keep up with living wage. Enough is enough and it is time for a real reform of staff pay to help us weather this storm together instead of divided.”
Oscar Berglund, Co-President of UCU Bristol, said: “UNISON colleagues at the university have had enough of nearly two decades of real-term pay cuts. University of Bristol has a long history of hiding behind national agreements as an excuse. Here they have a real opportunity to make sure that their workers are not left to struggle as prices in the city have soared. They can solve this dispute if they want to.”
Unite, the union representing operational and technical staff, say “We fully support UNISON in their strike action, recognising that pay in higher Education has been going backwards for well over a decade. This erosion has gone on far too long and must not continue”.
At its Higher Education conference in January, UNISON passed a motion calling for an overhaul of university finances; one to benefit students, academics, and staff. It affirmed an “opposition to tuition fees and support for a publicly funded, joined-up HE system.”
Speaking at the conference, UNISON’s General Secretary Andrea Egan said “We have to be clear: if the vice-chancellors and principals can afford to reward their professors, their consultants and themselves so handsomely with public money, they can do the same for our members […] While senior executive pay gets more obscene by the day, our lowest paid staff struggle to get to the end of the month and this is not acceptable.”
Sources
Private rental market statistics – April 2013 to March 2014 (England only) – GOV.UK
We did it! ✊ – University of Bristol UNISON
Fighting for pay and funding in higher education – UNISON National