Joint Trade Union open meeting on pay 2025–26: what was said, what was revealed, and what management is choosing to do next

On Thursday 11 December, the Joint Trade Unions at Imperial convened and chaired an open meeting for staff and students on the 2025–26 pay dispute. The meeting brought together members of the Imperial community with senior representatives of College management, including the Provost, the Chief Financial Officer, and the Chief People Officer.

The purpose of the meeting was straightforward: to give management the opportunity to explain and justify their handling of this year’s pay negotiations, and to answer questions from staff and students about the financial position, pay benchmarking, and the consequences of the imposed 2% pay award.

What emerged over the course of the meeting is that College management has both the capacity and the opportunity to resolve this dispute, but is choosing not to do so. That choice is now being made with full knowledge of the consequences: continued disruption, worsening staff relations, increased regulatory risk, and an entirely avoidable escalation of the dispute in the new year.

Slides from the meeting are available here: JTU open meeting on pay Dec 2025b
A draft transcript of the meeting is available here: Meeting transcript
(The transcript is subject to change pending final factual checks from panellists.)

Read on for a fuller account of what was discussed, what it means, and why the responsibility for what comes next now lies squarely with College management.

How we got here: a dispute that did not need to happen

Imperial left national pay bargaining in 2005. Since then, pay has been negotiated annually between College management and the three recognised trade unions.

This year, that process broke down at the outset.

The unions submitted an evidence-based pay claim, including:

• A 7.2% uplift to restore real-terms pay to 2018 levels

• A £2,000 flat payment to support lower-paid staff

• 30 days’ annual leave (the sector standard)

• Two weeks’ paid carers’ leave

• A working group to explore a four-day week

Management refused to negotiate on that claim and instead imposed a 2% pay offer, well below inflation, with no lump sum and a package of unrelated non-pay items.

The unions made clear—early and consistently—that such an offer would not be acceptable to staff and indicated that industrial action would be inevitable if no improvement was forthcoming. Those warnings were not acted upon.

The outcome was entirely predictable: record ballot turnouts, overwhelming support for action across all three unions, and the largest strike at Imperial in living memory.

Teaching disruption, student impact, and regulatory risk

Struck teaching is always high-impact. This year it is more so than ever.

As was set out clearly in the meeting:

• Learning outcomes must still be met

• Assessment timelines cannot easily move

• Regulators now actively scrutinise whether universities are protecting teaching provision

Recent sector experience matters. Following industrial action at Newcastle University, the Office for Students required financial compensation where learning was not adequately protected, at a cost of millions of pounds.

At Imperial, over 850 compensation claims have already been submitted by students during this dispute. Each represents a legally actionable signal of compromised provision.

Management’s mitigation measures have included:

• Instructing Heads of Department to replace missed teaching

• Pressuring returning strikers to rapidly reschedule teaching without removing other duties

• In some cases, instructing staff to deliver only the minimum required to avoid compensation triggers

The consequences have been serious and widely felt:

• Coercive pressure and overwork for staff

• Rushed classes, disrupted continuity, and variable educational quality for students

• Non-striking staff covering classes, an unprecedented step that damages collegial relationships and undermines lawful industrial action

This approach is not resolving the dispute. It is prolonging it.

The financial position: what management now knows

A central focus of the meeting was the College’s financial position.

During negotiations, unions were told that cash inflow from operations—the key indicator of financial health—was expected to be similar to last year, at around £81 million.

We now know that the actual figure was £131 million, around £50 million higher than projected.

In addition:

• Tuition fee income is on target

• The expected number of overseas students has been reached three years earlier than anticipated

• The much-cited risk of an overseas student levy has not materialised as claimed

  • The estimated cost has fallen from £28 million to £12 million

  • Its introduction has been delayed until 2028

These figures were not disputed in the meeting. Taken together, they remove any credible financial justification for refusing to reopen negotiations.

What remains is a choice.

Pay benchmarking: a failure of governance and trust

The meeting also exposed serious problems in the way pay benchmarking has been handled.

A 2018 pay review found that Imperial academics were significantly underpaid relative to peers and recommended raising the London Russell Group comparator to the upper quartile for academic, research, and teaching roles.

That recommendation was first delayed and then quietly abandoned. A later Pay Brochure misrepresented the review’s conclusions and was subsequently adopted as a College pay principle.

More recently, benchmarking attempts collapsed altogether due to the use of incorrect comparator data, producing results that were statistically and logically impossible.

Despite being informed of these errors, management has chosen not to correct them before making pay decisions this year, instead inviting the unions to review the data next year.

This represents a serious breakdown in governance. Staff cannot reasonably be expected to accept real-terms pay cuts justified by evidence that management itself acknowledges is flawed.

Management responses — and what they did not address

Management representatives engaged courteously and professionally throughout the meeting, and we acknowledge that.

However, the central questions remained unanswered.

There was no explanation of why, in light of improved finances and acknowledged failures in benchmarking, meaningful negotiations have still not been reopened.

There was no explanation of why staff pay is being treated as the one cost that must fall in real terms while fees and other major expenditures rise with inflation.

There was no acceptance of responsibility for the consequences of these decisions.

At this stage, the facts are known. The risks are known. The likely outcomes are known.

The chat: what staff and students were saying in real time

Alongside the formal Q&A, the Zoom chat provided a clear picture of sentiment among both staff and students.

While the chat log itself is not being published, its nature is important.

In real time, participants:

• Corrected management claims where they were incomplete or misleading

• Raised substantive issues that were not being addressed orally

• Expressed growing frustration at evasive or partial answers

• Highlighted the widening gap between College rhetoric and lived experience

The scale, consistency, and substance of the responses were striking. This was not performative anger. It was informed, engaged criticism from a community directly affected by the decisions being discussed.

What this means going into the new year

This dispute is not continuing by accident.

College management now has:

• Clear evidence of financial headroom

• Clear evidence of governance failures

• Clear evidence of staff and student concern

• Clear warning of regulatory and reputational risk

Choosing not to reopen negotiations under these conditions is an active decision.

If the dispute escalates in the new year—and under current conditions it is difficult to see how it will not—that escalation will be entirely foreseeable and entirely avoidable.

Staff are asking for negotiation conducted in good faith, based on accurate data, and grounded in the reality of the cost-of-living crisis facing those who deliver Imperial’s teaching and research.

The Joint Trade Unions remain ready to negotiate. The responsibility for what happens next now lies squarely with College management.

Imperial College UCU

Many colleagues will have seen President Hugh Brady’s all-staff email this afternoon. It is important we address it openly and accurately. The timing is itself noteworthy. Messages like this are not sent when management believe they can simply ignore an issue. They are sent when pressure is rising and concerns are being raised internally. Our action is having visible impact — this response demonstrates it.

Below, we unpick the key claims.

1. The 4.5% increase in salary costs is fully explained by normal, predictable factors

The President cites a 4.5% increase in salary costs. This is entirely accounted for by:

• the imposed 2% pay settlement,

• a 1.6% increase in staffing, and

• the portion of the 1.2% NI rise that falls into this year.

His reference to increments and other routine salary movements is misdirection: these happen every year and do not meaningfully change the pay bill.

2. His email inadvertently confirms a major increase in overseas student numbers — and therefore resources

The email also unintentionally reveals that the College is expecting a very large increase in overseas student numbers, the largest in many years. This directly contradicts earlier claims that overseas enrolments could collapse and destabilise the College’s finances.

A large rise in students brings two consequences:

• workloads that far exceed the 1.6% increase in staffing, and

• a very substantial increase in fee income.

The President estimates the levy cost will be £12m. At £925 per student (after the first 220 exempt), this corresponds to 12,700–13,700 overseas students, compared with just over 12,000 last year.

3. Management used incompatible financial scenarios during negotiations

During negotiations we were repeatedly warned that there was a risk of a fall in overseas enrolment due to geopolitical and market factors. That risk was real — no one disputes that. However, the College presented it as if a sharp downturn were the most likely scenario, when they were simultaneously relying on internal modelling that assumed a substantial increase in overseas numbers to generate their projected £27m levy cost.

In other words, management were advancing two incompatible scenarios to justify financial risk:

• a scenario of rising overseas numbers (to produce a large notional £27m levy cost), and

• a scenario of falling overseas numbers (to argue pay rises were unaffordable).

Both scenarios cannot underpin the same argument at the same time. The issue is not whether risk existed — it is the inconsistency with which that risk was deployed.

4. Actual 2025 enrolment figures now show strong growth far above College’s own targets

We now have the College’s own dashboard data for 2025 enrolment (finalised in December, with only minor expected changes):

• 13,322 overseas students — over 10% growth, the largest rise since the pandemic

• 11,264 home students — first increase in five years

• Total students up 6% — well above the 3.5% growth target cited during negotiations

5. What this means financially

Using conservative assumptions, we estimate:

• fees have risen by around 50% over five years, and

• by ~14% in the past year, roughly £70m new income.

Yet College proposes to offer staff only ~£13m, amounting to a real-terms pay cut.

Meanwhile workloads are rising sharply. A 1.6% staffing increase cannot absorb a 6% increase in students. Teaching quality will inevitably be affected.

6. Benchmarkgate: the credibility problems remain unresolved

We are surprised the President chose to highlight “flaws” in the benchmarks, because even the “corrected” figures remain deeply compromised:

• impossible quartile relationships,

• internal inconsistencies,

• and explanations that rely on misunderstandings of basic statistics
  (e.g. claiming that “a few” outliers could shift a quartile — which is impossible).

The President’s reference to a “median-to-upper-quartile pay principle” is also a misrepresentation of the 2018 Pay & Benefits Review. No such principle exists in it.

Rather than inviting unions to a review in 2026, leadership needs to acknowledge the present failures and provide validated data now. This year’s pay settlement relied on a dataset that senior management now concede was flawed.

7. The cracks in management’s position are widening

Across the term we have seen:

• miscalculated benchmarks,

• failures of governance in rewriting pay principles,

• incompatible financial narratives used in negotiations,

• and now a large, welcome surge in overseas enrolments which shows clearly that resources are available.

It is clear the College can afford a fair settlement.

8. The next two weeks will be decisive

We now enter two weeks of targeted, strategic teaching-only action. This is designed to apply pressure at the moment management care most about teaching delivery.

If we maintain unity and determination, we can secure a fair and sustainable settlement based on evidence, transparency and respect.

The alternative — accepting a real-terms pay cut and heavier workloads at a moment when it is now undeniable that the College has the resources to support staff properly — is simply not an option.

BenchmarkUCU_21Nov2025-2

In brief (if you don’t have much time)

The Imperial Joint Trade Unions (JTU) have written to the University Negotiating Team (UNT) to raise serious concerns about the College’s handling of the 2018 Pay Benchmarking Working Group recommendations, the lack of transparency in its pay strategy, and the wider pay dispute that has led to strike action this term.

In 2018, staff were told their views would help shape principles for fair pay. The Working Group that followed recommended that pay for academic, research and teaching staff be benchmarked to the upper quartile of national comparators and the median of international comparators. These recommendations, informed by a wide staff consultation, were never shared with staff and have since been quietly ignored.

Instead, the College has adopted a weaker “median to upper quartile” position, reducing pay benchmarks and the value of salaries relative to comparator institutions. The JTU’s letter highlights contradictions and misinformation in the College’s account of events and makes two formal requests:

1. An independent external investigation into how and why the 2018 recommendations were set aside; and
2. An immediate return to negotiations with a significantly improved pay offer.

These demands form part of the JTU’s wider call for a fair settlement in the current Imperial pay dispute. The College has not yet responded to either request.

Read on for a deeper dive

In 2018, the then President launched a review to ensure that salaries were “commensurate with our position as a world-leading institution.” Staff were invited to contribute, and the Pay Benchmarking Working Group—chaired by Professor Nigel Brandon—was established to guide the process. The Working Group concluded that pay should be benchmarked to the upper quartile of national comparators and the median of international comparators. These principles were designed to keep Imperial’s pay competitive and to demonstrate respect for staff contributions.

However, the recommendations were never disclosed to staff, and management has since claimed—falsely—that its current approach is “consistent” with the 2018 principles. After being challenged by the unions, senior management admitted that only some principles had been adopted, with Professor Brandon claiming the Provost’s Board had decided in July 2021 not to implement the recommendations in full. When asked for evidence, he deferred to the College’s lead on pay, Audrey Fraser, who asserted instead that the decision was taken in April 2021.

The cited Board summary does not support either account; it simply records approval to continue and expand benchmarking work, not to weaken the standards. Likewise, a July 2021 statement from the then Provost reaffirmed the use of international benchmarks, entirely consistent with the 2018 principles. Despite multiple requests, no formal record of any decision to disregard the Working Group’s recommendations has been provided.

Errors, contradictions, and credibility

The JTU has also raised concerns about major errors in calculating the College’s median benchmark, which overstated Imperial’s relative pay levels by up to 35%. These flawed figures were used to justify cutting real pay, with this year’s 2% imposed increase falling far below inflation.

The Provost told Heads of Department that the benchmarking error “has not materially affected our position,” while the President told Felix that the data was “not so flawed that it would change our offer.” These statements confirm that no corrective action will be taken as long as pay remains above the median—a stance that treats further erosion down to that level as “immaterial.”

Why this matters

The JTU believes these failures reveal a serious breakdown of governance, transparency, and integrity. The 2018 consultation was presented as a genuine effort to rebuild trust; instead, staff input has been disregarded while the College continues to prioritise major infrastructure and capital projects over addressing the long-term erosion of staff pay.

These issues are not separate from the ongoing pay dispute: they are central to it. The erosion of pay, the refusal to negotiate meaningfully, and the lack of accountability over pay benchmarking all form part of the same pattern.

Consultation must be meaningful, governance must be accountable, and staff deserve pay that reflects their contribution to Imperial’s success. Misleading accounts and professions of concern are no substitute for material action. 

For more information about the ongoing Imperial pay dispute and recent strike action,

Imperial UCU letter to the President, sent 17/1/25, and the response from the Provost, received 14/2/25:

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1. A full disclosure of the University’s investments in companies trading with Israel.
2. An explanation of how these investments and research partnerships align with the University’s ethical policies and the UN Principles of Responsible Research.
3. Any steps the University plans to take in light of the recent UN statement and evolving international legal frameworks.

Solidarity letter ICUCU to The Histradut October 2024

November 2024 letter of appreciation to the branch: Histadrut Imperial UCU letter of appreciation

Motion A and the Emergency Motion passed:
Motion A amended June 2024 – PASSED
Emergency motion June 2024 – PASSED

Motion B fell:
Motion B amended June 2024 – FELL