So I found a job advertised in a nice area of the UK on less than half my current salary which might all be OK except its a fixed 18mo position.

Much as I’m sick of what I do I don’t know if giving it up for an 18mo position is wise… or would this (in your opinion and experience) lead to openings in other places or perhaps be extended.

OH is a teacher so can do that anywhere but ripping the lad out of school speculatively for a much lower salary though perfectly liveable is a big move…

Why is it fixed term? (EU Funded project, maternity leave? etc – if externally funded is it likely to be funded again (a question to ask at interview))

The HE sector seems to be going through a period of flux at the moment, less 18 year olds, less EU students, more difficult for non eu foreign students to get visas so lots of insecurity and redundancies.

Big decision to make, is there a named person to contact on the job advert? If so call them.

Depends….

Teaching fellows (TFs), education lecturers or similar are becoming an established pathway in HE with a focus on teaching & admin. Most full-time academic positions require the person to be research active (that is, returnable in the REF in 2020; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Excellence_Framework) as well as teaching & admin loads. So there is normally less pressure to achieve publications & grants (or you lose your job) but you have a greater teaching load.

I would want to ask if the teaching fellow pathway is an established pathway in the uni and if there is the possibility of permanent progression with advancement. Or would there sufficient freedom in the role for you to develop a research & publication profile. They should be able to give you a good idea of your required workload.

Some unis will treat TFs really well while others will pile a huge amount of teaching & supervision on them to free up the academics to focus on research for REF & grants.

Have you been offered the job?
If it’s still application stage, I would apply for it and then see. Lots of competition for those jobs, even the poorly paid, contract ones, as there is a glut of PhDs and not enough lecturer jobs.
I know lots of academics. The uni sector is increasingly like the corporate sector, lots of targets, performance management, student reviews, etc. If you don’t mind that, and love the teaching/research, it can be a better life, especially if you are a high performer (although high performers could earn a lot more money in the corporate sector).
But there are signs HE is in bubble-territory, and the government is discussing reducing tuition fees, which will hit many universities who have over-expanded and over-loaded on debt in the last 8 years. Maybe do some research and see how much debt this particular university has taken on in terms of your long-term job prospects.

This a university teacher or is it a research/lecturer post. TBH if you are in a permemant job the now with double the pay I would keep it.

Why is it fixed term? (EU Funded project, maternity leave? etc – if externally funded is it likely to be funded again (a question to ask at interview))

The role description states special requirements …
There is a named person HOD but I’m fairly certain I can find a mutual academic reference who would perhaps put in a good word.

BadnewzPOAH .. it’s teaching though I’m currently doing academic papers anyway … just most of them get reviewed and hidden away … or confidential commercially sensitive stuck on… for obvious reasons can’t name them on here as various organisations pay the academics to do the review rather than publish in a journal

The thing is this makes up almost non of my billable time. Few companies pay for academic research at the cost my company charges and we stopped doing anything not 100% funded by a client . I’m pre-empting being on this quarters redundnacy list or next quarters ..I’ve managed to get through a whole string but it’s just a numbers game and matter of time. so I have a job this month and who knows next month or xmass. Every quarter sees more of my peers get canned

Really depends on the policy of the Uni. Some are starting to use Temp TFs as a stop gap to allow them an extended period to.recruit globally to what is a research post.

Have you done much undergrad teaching? It’s not everyone’s cup of tea – small group tutorial stuff is the brass tacks of pedagogy so most people enjoy that, and practical teaching could be quite fun when I did it. Lecturing, though – hard to do well, a lot of work if you’re doing it properly, and a bit marginal in terms of educational value. Not something that people take a lot of joy out of IME, on both sides of the lectern. A teaching post with lectures loaded up out the bazoo could be a nightmare.

Academia is a really broad church, though – so much variation between subjects, universities, undergrads that no one can say this is how things are for Teaching Fellows unless you give us more detail.

Sounds like a shit position with no prospects. What would your plans be 18mo down the line?

Sounds like a shit position with no prospects. What would your plans be 18mo down the line?

At the moment it’s a short term stop gap but one that would have 18mo. and give me some lecturing experience.
I have run a lot of industry training etc.
This is really just an example of the job search…. I liked it as it’s closeish to family and targetted towards industry but it doesn’t solve the medium or longer term “what will I do next year or the year after”.

Back in 2010 I quit a well-paid job in finance to pursue a career in academia. The experience was largely negative and I ended up walking away without the PhD, struggling for 8 months unemployed trying to find an employer that recognised the value of my academic experience.

I eventually managed to find an interesting job in sales / management which I enjoy, but I have a number of friends who did finish their PhDs and are scraping by on short term teaching fellowships or are just straight up unemployed.

Do your research very carefully before pursuing an academic career. It isn’t for everyone and the job prospects are poor at the moment

Do your research very carefully before pursuing an academic career. It isn’t for everyone and the job prospects are poor at the moment

Yep the trend is towards a Sport Direct model…

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/nov/16/universities-accused-of-importing-sports-direct-model-for-lecturers-pay

Do your research very carefully before pursuing an academic career. It isn’t for everyone and the job prospects are poor at the moment

I definitely agree with this.

BITD (1980s) when I started working at a uni, it was great, more fun than being a student and getting paid for it. Then in 5 years they halved the number of staff and doubled the number of students. Things progressed in that direction until I got out 10 years ago to put my feet up whilst working in industry. 8)

Teaching fellow positions are becoming more and more common. They exist for a number of reasons: covering maternity leave, covering someone being bought out by grant money, covering a recruitment gap, or can come from various combinations of bits of pots of money from all of the above. In general they are fixed term, with little scope for them to be extended, as the money runs out. Sometimes you might find some other pots of money come along and therefore it might get extended for 6-24 months, as it is easier, and better, to keep someone in post via redeployment.

However, they are a bit dead-end jobs. You can get stuck in a cycle of them, where you have no time to do research and therefore no easy way out i.e. hard to get a lectureship etc. I know a couple of my peers which this is the case. It also depends on the Uni – some will give you research time during the summer like a full academic; others will expect you to deliver 100% teaching with summer schools etc over the summer.

I have seen cases where you get treated as a bit of second class citizen, with any ‘spare’ teaching dumped on you.

If you havent got any undergrad teaching experience on your CV – for example demonstrating as a postgraduate, you are very unlikely to get shortlisted. If you have, put an application in and leave your options open. I’d be realistic though that you might have to move from pillar to post if you do go down this route.

If you have relevant academic/industrial experience, which might deliver a University an ‘impact case study’ (this is another long topic) you might be able to get an academic post without teaching experience. Depends what your longer term goal is.

If you want, DM me the position advert (I am a Academic in a Russel Group Uni) and I’ll have a look at it and see if I can provide a bit more specific advice; though as said above, it can be very subject specific. If it gives you any context, I have just finished working for the day, half an hour ago!

You can also email me – the OH can give some pretty direct assessment of this as a career path: she’s s senior lecturer who’s spent the last decade or so creating a teaching career pathway pretty much from scratch and employs teaching fellows.

As a long term prospect, it’s certainly still the hard route to career progress in a university. She earns less than 50% of my income and certainly works no less hard..!!

I haven’t read the whole thread, so forgive me, but I would also expect your subject area to make a huge difference as to what is available after an 18 month teaching fellowship.

I used to apply for every teaching fellowship that came open in my field, and know that some of my ‘competitors’ have managed to hang on to the position after accepting. On the other hand, I close friend of mine with a bibliography the length of your arm lost his lectureship, and has not been able to secure an academic post since.

On a personal level, I would take the risk regardless, as I would see the post you describe as a fairly concrete pathway.

I know 2 people who after 2 short term research posts went to posh Universities for 2 yr teaching fellowships. After this they had to move on but the experience helped them get proper Lectureships at other places. Granted they had move quite a bit mind

Lots of good advice here. Much depends on the institution/department/subject area so find out all you can about the background. There is starting to be quite a strong polarisation into ‘Teaching + Research’ and ‘Teaching only’ career paths in some places and teaching loads on the Teaching only path can be high (750 contact hours per year in our place which, allowing 1 hour prep and 1 hour marking for each contact hour makes pretty much a full time job, so little opportunity for research). It is a daft job at times but it is also very rewarding. Personally, I wouldn’t want to take a Teaching only career path but that depends very much on the individual and their inclinations. Go into it with your eyes open.

This really is starting to seem like the grass is always browner 🙁 (or mostly as brown but far less pay)

At this juncture the main things I want to change are better job security and seeing my kid more often and the former seems unlikely to be met. The latter is hit and miss .if I make it through the next round of redundancies.. I might end up working away half way round the globe for months and only getting the odd weekend back.

I’d be realistic though that you might have to move from pillar to post if you do go down this route.

Yep that seems to be the killer to the idea.

The current job is just making me ill… a combination of redundancy cycles every quarter and working 80+ hours weeks almost constantly just to edge the next redundancy cycle … and start again.

Job security and academia don’t really belong in the same sentence nowadays. My other half completed her PhD but then went straight back into her career in industry (sciences) and enjoys 9-5 days, weekends off, a full time permanent contract etc. She looks at academic positions now and then but the short term nature of them puts her off, as well as the unrealistic workload and comparitively low pay.

There’s a lot of good literature, both academic and journalistic, focussing on the negativities of casual / precarious work in academia. However, within the ivory tower itself, if you shout too loudly about these issues then you can find your career shot down in flames. There are always academics who know how to and are willing to play the system and screw over their own to get lucrative research / admin only positions and in most HE institutions in the UK you will find this new class of middle managers have an overbearing presence within departments.

As a teacher you won’t be supported in research. The whole point of teaching posts is so that they are not REFfable. It’s a dead end you’ll be lucky to get out of. Job security? You’re having a laugh.

My other half completed her PhD but then went straight back into her career in industry (sciences) and enjoys 9-5 days, weekends off, a full time permanent contract etc.

This is just the sort of thing I’m really after… I just can’t seem to find a way to re-invent myself into a job role that has any of those things…

thecaptain – Member

As a teacher you won’t be supported in research. The whole point of teaching posts is so that they are not REFfable. It’s a dead end you’ll be lucky to get out of. Job security? You’re having a laugh.

It’s only a deadend for research, so taking on a post like that with the expectation of doing anything serious in that direction will cause some misery. Or if it’s done for the wrong reasons like you’ve missed out on a research position and hanging round universities is all you know.

Taking it as a pure teaching post, though, how can it be a deadend, and what’s to get out of? The teaching fellows I’ve worked with are motivated by undergrad teaching and do great with the role. The challenge, mentioned already, is the short-termism. Even if you’re really good it’s a hard position to settle down into with even a medium term contract. That is not neccesarily a bridge to cross at this stage for the OP interested in applying for their first position.

The whole point of teaching posts is so that they are not REFfable

Yes, but I suspect TEF will succeed to some extent in moving the sector away from its silly focus on research record when hiring lecturers who spend 90%+ of their time teaching. Certainly for unis outside the Russell Group.

I’m a teaching fellow and really enjoy it. I’m not bothered about research/publishing so it suits me. If you can create good, well-reviewed modules/courses then you’ll be in need and valued by the uni.

I’m a teaching fellow and really enjoy it.

And people like Reggie are worth their weight in gold. Sadly though a lot of TF’s come about through not getting a research position. Though as said above, with TEF, one can see far more teaching positions opening up. Which is great if they are fully of Reggie’s – not grumpy, non-REF’able academics. We should celebrate people like Reggie who are good and enjoy their work.

Sadly though a lot of TF’s come about through not getting a research position

Or, even worse, in some institutions if you are on a research pathway and fail to generate sufficient grant income or publication you get transfered to a teaching pathway.

Yes fair enough to the comments and I’m certainly not looking down on teaching-only posts but others were talking about developing a research profile or moving into a research post which seems unlikely to me. And the point remains that 18mo is a shit contract,teaching should if anything be a more permanent position than research (as the latter is usually funded on the basis of specific finite duration grants). Are they expecting the number of students to fall off a cliff, or is someone coming back from a leave of absence? In either case you’re stuffed.

TEF will have a major impact and arguably make Teaching-only staff (the very good ones) more valued that they’ve historically been.
At the same time, Higher Ed is due a contraction in student numbers, and it’s not a guaranteed long-term gig.
But there will be a lot of opportunities who connect academia with other fields, e.g. like business.
I think the pure research staff, who dislike teaching/aren’t any good at it, could be the ones in the more insecure position, as grant funding is contracting.

We should celebrate people like Reggie who are good and enjoy their work

here here. Well said.

Student feedback, via the National Student Survey (NSS) is increasingly important as a marketing and (student) recruitment mechanism, so good teaching is important, and good teachers are valued, certainly at the uni/management school school where I work.

Taking it as a pure teaching post, though, how can it be a deadend, and what’s to get out of?.

Well the dead-end is what to do after 18mo….

If you are on a research funded path then to a large extent finding the future funding is down to yourself and luck… but at least in my field it seems hard to combine funding and REFable… as the most fund-worthy research seems to also be the least publish-able.

I’ve got a workshop on Monday where I have to prepare with a load of academics for a peer review but the direct outcomes of this will never be published anywhere anyone outside the specific company doing the funding.

stevextc – Member

If you are on a research funded path then to a large extent finding the future funding is down to yourself and luck… but at least in my field it seems hard to combine funding and REFable… as the most fund-worthy research seems to also be the least publish-able.The impact studies ahsat mentioned upthread are the most REFable thing there is – crushes even Science and Nature papers. So it doesn’t have to be publications. I believe they have to be linked to the university where the research actually took place, by definition, (unlike papers), so it’s not like you bring them with you to a new post. So more of a general thing to be aware of in relating what you’re currently doing to academic positions.
School I’m at is pretty good and will have few worries on research outputs for REF, just because we’re all motivated to publish in the best places. Impact studies are a different story, really challenging to put good ones together because they take years to build up in strength.

Also, the revised REF is likely to require more impact studies. If you can’t pick and choose which staff to include, and you need x impact cases per y staff, then you’re going to need a LOT of impact cases.

Anyway, can’t dawdle, my teaching year kicks off at 10.00 on Monday. Handouts to copy, notes to read through, f***ing Blackboard to fight with……..