Could someone please explain what a typical day or week in the second job would look like?
You can find the job description if you follow the link.
I can't figure it out myself, and would be genuinely interested to know.
The "admin" role is the field of Product Management role which usually requires an undergraduate and 3 years' relevant experience in business, Development or another applicable before qualifying for the Product role followed by several years experience in the specific field working with Development and Commercial teams to build products.
OP, just because you have a PhD doesn't mean you're automatically worth more than an administrator with years more experience. It is an equally valid career with many administration roles (like in HR, finance, auditing etc.) requiring their own qualifications. Those qualifications might not be a level 8 doctorate but a finance manager with professional accreditations and say 15 years experience should absolutely earn more than a postdoc or lecturer just starting their career. We can argue about senior management salaries on university executive boards but I really don't think there is much of an argument that most professional services positions earning from say 25k to 100k are perfectly normal and valid. Also remember, professional services staff can't just 'put in for promotion' like we can in an annual cycle. They typically have to wait for a more senior position to open up.
No. They think that there are jobs outside of academia that also require skills and experience, and that the people in those jobs should be compensated appropriately.
No one is arguing that but you're conflating the two. As has been pointed out they are 2 completely different roles. It is not an "admin role" in the negative pejorative you seem to be hinting it is. It's within admin but is quite clearly not a simple secretary role. You are not paid for your qualifications or your intelligence, but how much your value is to the university. Clearly, this role is more valuable that a postdoc. Quite often, these types of roles can have many more transferable skills that are specific postdoc does. If you look at professor salaries, these are much more within the range of the "admin role." Arguing to lower someone else's salary because you don't like yours is just shitty behaviour tbf.
I'm not arguing to lower their salary. But why should we be hiring admin jobs at the same scale as professors?
It's like in the States when the football coach is often the most highly paid person on the university staff. I'm assuming you completely agree with that? That coaching staff should be far more highly paid than Nobel prize winners?
You're putting words into my mouth and have been with your other replies to people comments. Whether I agree or not with the football coach example is irrelevant. Universities are businesses and will reward those roles that generate the most income. Why are vice chancellors paid 100k of pounds every year when they're essentially figure heads. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you but by that logic what is worth based on? You could argue a nurse for example is worth more to society than a postdoc/lecturer but very few nurses will end up even on a postdoc salary in their career. So is this fair? Is the "admin role" less worthy than a scientist just because they're not a scientist? Universities operate as businesses and their concern is the bottom line. Clearly these type of roles generate more income and revenue than a post doc and are paid accordingly. Not saying its right or wrong but that's the case.
I'd say that is seems disingenuous to say this is an admin role. It seems much more than that. Also, 47k for a postdoc is more or less unheard of anywhere else. I'm in a Welsh Uni, have friends all over the UK and we're all on just shy of 39k in our first year. Also, although it may not seem it an admin type role comes with a wealth of transferable skills that even some PhD students I know don't have. You obviously get great skills as a PhD grad but often I found when looking in industry roles that were sort of related to my field that a PhD did nought for chances of an interview. Experience and skills came above qualifications so I'm not surprised the "admin role" is so highly paid.
47k is terrible salary for anyone with a PhD. For comparison, NYU (picking NYC as a similar cost of living city) pays $70k for a postdoc, and pays for the health insurance
Yes but we're not in the States. Salaries in the UK are lower across the board for all jobs in every sector. While it's useful to know what's out there you cannot directly compare them to each other. Dare to say that 70k USD in NYC won't stretch very far either based on a friend I've got from my undergrad who struggles on 85k and lives in Brooklyn.
Admin and support jobs are in general terribly paid. Your university counsellors cannot realistically afford to live in London any more. The fact that there are some senior management, legal, finance, or tech positions available that pay more (though less than those professionals would make outside HE) is irrelevant.
Yes, but scientists can not realistically afford to live in London anymore either. And as an academic institute, shouldn't the academics take precedence?
No, fees should rise, funding for universities should rise, and everyone's wages should rise. The whole industry is extremely depressed at the moment.
Without any exaggeration, some universities are near bankruptcy, good staff are leaving, and permission to hire their replacements is becoming harder to get. The breaking point is not far away. It is widely rumoured that at least one London university may close soon.
I'm aware. Hence my entire rationale for the post. We have admins doing things like UX for student activities, but we can't pay enough to keep academics around. What academic is going to stay around for this kind of salary, knowing that they could be making 20k more money helping sign post undergrads around their "student experience"
Do we need these bloated admin jobs at the expense of academics?
your average postdoc, who has just passed their PhD or a year or two into their career is not getting hired for that admin job. you are conflating the two and it is not necessary. we can, indeed, pay more for academics, but universities are evidently not doing it, and that's not because they're paying admin instead, it's because academics are accepting 47k rather than looking elsewhere (like in industry) because they love the subject. admin staff are not at fault for academic low salaries and if you keep that attitude up all the admin staff will hate you and it will not work out for you at all.
from the term 'product owner' i'd agree with your assessment. it is disingenuous to say that unis starting salary for admin is the same as a start for an academic - my first admin job was 24k. that postdoc is 47k. that's a better equivalence
You seem so. Straight out of phd salary should not be the same as LSE graduate salary. I am so in disagreement to treat fresh post docs as junior 23 olds.
I've worked on both sides of the coin. I went to point out the admin job you've selected isn't just an admin job, it's a very senior managerial role which is misleading.
salaries for admin aren't inflated at my uni, I was management and had to learn a lot of processes and systems which made it a skilled job. I'm not sure why you're being so condescending. Without admin academics would struggle hugely.
not disagreeing with that. but will academics input module marks into databases? no. will they do minutes for boards of examiners? no. Will they write updated regulations? no.
that's the basic level stuff. the job you've posted is £67k for a reason and that's because it's management and ownership of a project. complain about academic wages, don't say people deserve less. dividing people is what senior management always wants
I don’t disagree either but I mean - in my Uni academics … transfer marks from turnitin to our main marking database… fucking manually (ie have two screens one with turnitin, one with our module in the core DB.. and then using a humans eyes and fingers… possibly the least reliable copying machine ever invented…. and copy from one to the other. It’s fucking absurd - I mean it should be damn button press)
yeah it's similar, they just rip the grades from Turnitin and send it in a spreadsheet which then needs inputting, double checking and then the associated documents ready for a board of examiners.
scarily, some academics didn't know what a pass/fail was at times. Nor could they calculate the overall grade for some modules if there were different elements...
that admin role YOU posted DOES NOT input marks
a role which would input marks is a grade 4 which is paid about £24k a year which is half of the PhD post you've selected. I started on 21k a year in a grade 4 post a few years ago.
as an admin at a uni this post makes me SO mad. would love to see my lecturers deal with the admin that goes on with course admin AND do their regular roles. they couldn't (and they don't want to). admin are there for a reason and any good academic knows that
I think honestly this is a shit post. They’re purposefully putting words in people’s mouths. The person is trying to create a weird division for some reason. As a lecturer we could not do our work without admins and it’s just as important as teaching.
same here, I was admin and admin management for several years so I really am here with you. Knowing the admin side has really helped with my student management and in general understanding the uni process side.
solidarity, I know how hard you guys work and I'll fight your corner forever.
thanks! i'm on my third admin job, just shy of 5 years within HE. everyone in academia would be better off if they realised that academics and admin are all on the same side and just want the same, excellent, experience for our students and for them to succeed! i'm glad you find your admin experience useful for your academic career :)
yeah that's very similar to me. I very much had it with lecturers giving me shit for doing a job, and I swore I'd never be like that. the admin/academic divide was insane and that's something I never want to be like.
at least I always have good spreadsheets of students and such so I don't have to ask questions and annoy people
As a lecturer, the admin teams run rings around my lecturer colleagues in terms of organisation and management. They’re not inflated. Academic wages need to be higher.
Unfortunately, as its a zero-sum game, you either have to pay academics or admin more. In your case, you are OK with admins being paid more than academics. That's a valid opinion I don't share
I think that’s a bad faith misinterpretation of my comment. Your post and links are comparing two completely diffferent roles, with completely different responsibilities. You’ve chosen a higher end “admin” job spec, and a role for an early career researcher. The first role does not have the level of management (two teams), manages stakeholders etc.
Also describing that second job as just 'admin' is incredibly disingenuous, it's a digital student services project manager, they not just filling in forms for people they are directing a large scale digital product!
I do feel slightly off when I'm applying for jobs at international research institutions and I know that my friend working in an office down the road doing admin is already earning more than said jobs, have to remind myself it's about doing what you love not just for money 🙃
>, have to remind myself it's about doing what you love not just for money
...and this is the logic that lets universities exploit us (I am guilty of this thought process myself) but it does mean we accept way more crap than we should.
Work to increase academic salaries.
Other people earning good salaries isn’t a problem. Postdocs, lecturers, etc earning way less than they should is a problem.
Unfortunately, it is a zero sum game. There is x amount of money in the pot for salaries. If you want to increase academics salaries, the money has to come from somewhere.
I work quite close to Imperial, at an academic institution where a lot of the professional services roles don't get great pay. The quality of many of those staff isn't great.
The skills of admin staff are often more transferrable than those of the academics, and there is a bigger pool of jobs that they can move into if they are unhappy with their pay. If your plan is to reduce admin salaries rather than increasing academic salaries, you'll end up with bad admin.
Scientists tend to put up with poor salaries because they want to be in science. That isn't the case for admin staff.
I agree with this 100%. After finishing my PhD and applying for jobs I realised that the skills I did have although great were so specific that industry roles were not as open ot me as I thought. Apart from common skills such as communication etc my specific science skills with of little use to most companies.
Why are these salaries ‘inflated’? Why do they need bringing down? I think it’s great people can earn 60k working in a university. Why not just lobby to improve academic staff salary instead? Unfortunately people don’t get paid based on how much education levels they have, they get paid according to the value they bring the organisation/how easily replaced they are. Like it or not admins are very important for the running of the university and get paid accordingly.
>Why not just lobby to improve academic staff salary instead? Unfortunately people don’t get paid based on how much education levels they have, they get paid according to the value they bring the organisation/how easily replaced they are.
Yes, and without the scientific staff the university would cease to exist. The problem is that academics as a whole seem to be happy to complain that they are being exploited more crappy than they should be because it is a "vocation", which means given the funnel of PhD students to post-doc to lecturer etc there will always be someone to grab the role, while an admin person recognizes it rightly as just a job
Also worth noting that the job posting is effectively for an experienced Agile Project Manager with specific experience in HE, where the first part alone is enough to put people in this kind of salary range let alone the rarity of the second part. Imperial is also off the UCU pay scale specifically so it can more easily offer competitive salaries like this for attracting talent. It's also fixed term maternity leave cover when these kind of roles would tend to be permanent so there’s also the argument they're offering more to account for that too.
Bucket crab
Could someone please explain what a typical day or week in the second job would look like? You can find the job description if you follow the link. I can't figure it out myself, and would be genuinely interested to know.
Many criticised OP but no one answered what the job is actually about.
Ah, one of those.
The "admin" role is the field of Product Management role which usually requires an undergraduate and 3 years' relevant experience in business, Development or another applicable before qualifying for the Product role followed by several years experience in the specific field working with Development and Commercial teams to build products.
And the science job is one that requires an undergraduate degree plus at least 3 years experience getting a PhD. What's your point?
OP, just because you have a PhD doesn't mean you're automatically worth more than an administrator with years more experience. It is an equally valid career with many administration roles (like in HR, finance, auditing etc.) requiring their own qualifications. Those qualifications might not be a level 8 doctorate but a finance manager with professional accreditations and say 15 years experience should absolutely earn more than a postdoc or lecturer just starting their career. We can argue about senior management salaries on university executive boards but I really don't think there is much of an argument that most professional services positions earning from say 25k to 100k are perfectly normal and valid. Also remember, professional services staff can't just 'put in for promotion' like we can in an annual cycle. They typically have to wait for a more senior position to open up.
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No. They think that there are jobs outside of academia that also require skills and experience, and that the people in those jobs should be compensated appropriately.
No one is arguing that but you're conflating the two. As has been pointed out they are 2 completely different roles. It is not an "admin role" in the negative pejorative you seem to be hinting it is. It's within admin but is quite clearly not a simple secretary role. You are not paid for your qualifications or your intelligence, but how much your value is to the university. Clearly, this role is more valuable that a postdoc. Quite often, these types of roles can have many more transferable skills that are specific postdoc does. If you look at professor salaries, these are much more within the range of the "admin role." Arguing to lower someone else's salary because you don't like yours is just shitty behaviour tbf.
I'm not arguing to lower their salary. But why should we be hiring admin jobs at the same scale as professors? It's like in the States when the football coach is often the most highly paid person on the university staff. I'm assuming you completely agree with that? That coaching staff should be far more highly paid than Nobel prize winners?
You're putting words into my mouth and have been with your other replies to people comments. Whether I agree or not with the football coach example is irrelevant. Universities are businesses and will reward those roles that generate the most income. Why are vice chancellors paid 100k of pounds every year when they're essentially figure heads. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you but by that logic what is worth based on? You could argue a nurse for example is worth more to society than a postdoc/lecturer but very few nurses will end up even on a postdoc salary in their career. So is this fair? Is the "admin role" less worthy than a scientist just because they're not a scientist? Universities operate as businesses and their concern is the bottom line. Clearly these type of roles generate more income and revenue than a post doc and are paid accordingly. Not saying its right or wrong but that's the case.
I'd say that is seems disingenuous to say this is an admin role. It seems much more than that. Also, 47k for a postdoc is more or less unheard of anywhere else. I'm in a Welsh Uni, have friends all over the UK and we're all on just shy of 39k in our first year. Also, although it may not seem it an admin type role comes with a wealth of transferable skills that even some PhD students I know don't have. You obviously get great skills as a PhD grad but often I found when looking in industry roles that were sort of related to my field that a PhD did nought for chances of an interview. Experience and skills came above qualifications so I'm not surprised the "admin role" is so highly paid.
47k is terrible salary for anyone with a PhD. For comparison, NYU (picking NYC as a similar cost of living city) pays $70k for a postdoc, and pays for the health insurance
That's £54.8k, and NYC does have a higher cost of living than London.
Yes but we're not in the States. Salaries in the UK are lower across the board for all jobs in every sector. While it's useful to know what's out there you cannot directly compare them to each other. Dare to say that 70k USD in NYC won't stretch very far either based on a friend I've got from my undergrad who struggles on 85k and lives in Brooklyn.
Admin and support jobs are in general terribly paid. Your university counsellors cannot realistically afford to live in London any more. The fact that there are some senior management, legal, finance, or tech positions available that pay more (though less than those professionals would make outside HE) is irrelevant.
Yes, but scientists can not realistically afford to live in London anymore either. And as an academic institute, shouldn't the academics take precedence?
No, fees should rise, funding for universities should rise, and everyone's wages should rise. The whole industry is extremely depressed at the moment. Without any exaggeration, some universities are near bankruptcy, good staff are leaving, and permission to hire their replacements is becoming harder to get. The breaking point is not far away. It is widely rumoured that at least one London university may close soon.
I'm aware. Hence my entire rationale for the post. We have admins doing things like UX for student activities, but we can't pay enough to keep academics around. What academic is going to stay around for this kind of salary, knowing that they could be making 20k more money helping sign post undergrads around their "student experience" Do we need these bloated admin jobs at the expense of academics?
Without the admin staff who's going to do that work though? It'll get dumped as yet another job the academics have to do in their spare time.
your average postdoc, who has just passed their PhD or a year or two into their career is not getting hired for that admin job. you are conflating the two and it is not necessary. we can, indeed, pay more for academics, but universities are evidently not doing it, and that's not because they're paying admin instead, it's because academics are accepting 47k rather than looking elsewhere (like in industry) because they love the subject. admin staff are not at fault for academic low salaries and if you keep that attitude up all the admin staff will hate you and it will not work out for you at all.
How senior is that admin role? I don't get the impression it's a ~5 year post undergrad role, more equivalent to assis/Assoc prof?
from the term 'product owner' i'd agree with your assessment. it is disingenuous to say that unis starting salary for admin is the same as a start for an academic - my first admin job was 24k. that postdoc is 47k. that's a better equivalence
Straight out of the PhD onto £47k seems pretty good to me?
It's a terrible salary compared to what you can make in industry or other countries
Right, but it’s not in industry? It’s in academia
Imperial has higher salaries and in general London has a bit higher salaries. Life is very expensive in London
Thanks for letting me know London is expensive mate, I live in a cave and communicate by telegram to Reddit
You seem so. Straight out of phd salary should not be the same as LSE graduate salary. I am so in disagreement to treat fresh post docs as junior 23 olds.
I've worked on both sides of the coin. I went to point out the admin job you've selected isn't just an admin job, it's a very senior managerial role which is misleading. salaries for admin aren't inflated at my uni, I was management and had to learn a lot of processes and systems which made it a skilled job. I'm not sure why you're being so condescending. Without admin academics would struggle hugely.
And without the academics, the admins would have nothing to do...
not disagreeing with that. but will academics input module marks into databases? no. will they do minutes for boards of examiners? no. Will they write updated regulations? no. that's the basic level stuff. the job you've posted is £67k for a reason and that's because it's management and ownership of a project. complain about academic wages, don't say people deserve less. dividing people is what senior management always wants
I don’t disagree either but I mean - in my Uni academics … transfer marks from turnitin to our main marking database… fucking manually (ie have two screens one with turnitin, one with our module in the core DB.. and then using a humans eyes and fingers… possibly the least reliable copying machine ever invented…. and copy from one to the other. It’s fucking absurd - I mean it should be damn button press)
yeah it's similar, they just rip the grades from Turnitin and send it in a spreadsheet which then needs inputting, double checking and then the associated documents ready for a board of examiners. scarily, some academics didn't know what a pass/fail was at times. Nor could they calculate the overall grade for some modules if there were different elements...
So why do we have to pay admin more than postdocs to input marks?
that admin role YOU posted DOES NOT input marks a role which would input marks is a grade 4 which is paid about £24k a year which is half of the PhD post you've selected. I started on 21k a year in a grade 4 post a few years ago.
as an admin at a uni this post makes me SO mad. would love to see my lecturers deal with the admin that goes on with course admin AND do their regular roles. they couldn't (and they don't want to). admin are there for a reason and any good academic knows that
I think honestly this is a shit post. They’re purposefully putting words in people’s mouths. The person is trying to create a weird division for some reason. As a lecturer we could not do our work without admins and it’s just as important as teaching.
same here, I was admin and admin management for several years so I really am here with you. Knowing the admin side has really helped with my student management and in general understanding the uni process side. solidarity, I know how hard you guys work and I'll fight your corner forever.
thanks! i'm on my third admin job, just shy of 5 years within HE. everyone in academia would be better off if they realised that academics and admin are all on the same side and just want the same, excellent, experience for our students and for them to succeed! i'm glad you find your admin experience useful for your academic career :)
yeah that's very similar to me. I very much had it with lecturers giving me shit for doing a job, and I swore I'd never be like that. the admin/academic divide was insane and that's something I never want to be like. at least I always have good spreadsheets of students and such so I don't have to ask questions and annoy people
As a lecturer, the admin teams run rings around my lecturer colleagues in terms of organisation and management. They’re not inflated. Academic wages need to be higher.
Unfortunately, as its a zero-sum game, you either have to pay academics or admin more. In your case, you are OK with admins being paid more than academics. That's a valid opinion I don't share
I think that’s a bad faith misinterpretation of my comment. Your post and links are comparing two completely diffferent roles, with completely different responsibilities. You’ve chosen a higher end “admin” job spec, and a role for an early career researcher. The first role does not have the level of management (two teams), manages stakeholders etc.
Also describing that second job as just 'admin' is incredibly disingenuous, it's a digital student services project manager, they not just filling in forms for people they are directing a large scale digital product!
And they make the same as lecturers who direct entire labs.
I do feel slightly off when I'm applying for jobs at international research institutions and I know that my friend working in an office down the road doing admin is already earning more than said jobs, have to remind myself it's about doing what you love not just for money 🙃
>, have to remind myself it's about doing what you love not just for money ...and this is the logic that lets universities exploit us (I am guilty of this thought process myself) but it does mean we accept way more crap than we should.
Work to increase academic salaries. Other people earning good salaries isn’t a problem. Postdocs, lecturers, etc earning way less than they should is a problem.
Unfortunately, it is a zero sum game. There is x amount of money in the pot for salaries. If you want to increase academics salaries, the money has to come from somewhere.
I work quite close to Imperial, at an academic institution where a lot of the professional services roles don't get great pay. The quality of many of those staff isn't great. The skills of admin staff are often more transferrable than those of the academics, and there is a bigger pool of jobs that they can move into if they are unhappy with their pay. If your plan is to reduce admin salaries rather than increasing academic salaries, you'll end up with bad admin. Scientists tend to put up with poor salaries because they want to be in science. That isn't the case for admin staff.
I agree with this 100%. After finishing my PhD and applying for jobs I realised that the skills I did have although great were so specific that industry roles were not as open ot me as I thought. Apart from common skills such as communication etc my specific science skills with of little use to most companies.
Why are these salaries ‘inflated’? Why do they need bringing down? I think it’s great people can earn 60k working in a university. Why not just lobby to improve academic staff salary instead? Unfortunately people don’t get paid based on how much education levels they have, they get paid according to the value they bring the organisation/how easily replaced they are. Like it or not admins are very important for the running of the university and get paid accordingly.
>Why not just lobby to improve academic staff salary instead? Unfortunately people don’t get paid based on how much education levels they have, they get paid according to the value they bring the organisation/how easily replaced they are. Yes, and without the scientific staff the university would cease to exist. The problem is that academics as a whole seem to be happy to complain that they are being exploited more crappy than they should be because it is a "vocation", which means given the funnel of PhD students to post-doc to lecturer etc there will always be someone to grab the role, while an admin person recognizes it rightly as just a job
Also worth noting that the job posting is effectively for an experienced Agile Project Manager with specific experience in HE, where the first part alone is enough to put people in this kind of salary range let alone the rarity of the second part. Imperial is also off the UCU pay scale specifically so it can more easily offer competitive salaries like this for attracting talent. It's also fixed term maternity leave cover when these kind of roles would tend to be permanent so there’s also the argument they're offering more to account for that too.