ABSTRACT
All UK universities receiving public funding have comparable legal rights to appoint whomever they choose, within broadly comparable salary ranges. Since the mid-1980s, universities have been competing to recruit high-quality academic staff with better salaries and terms of employment as well as by offering additional inducements. Each university has different hiring practices, rewards, promotion criteria and policies/practices, and nonsalary benefits. Recent years have witnessed a substantial improvement in academic salaries and benefits. However, due to the recent financial crisis and subsequent cuts in public funding, UK universities have faced a different economic environment, and the continued affordability of these salaries and benefits has become questionable. The ability to secure high-level academics in the future will pose a major challenge to the UK higher education system.
