All the UK unis which are cutting back STEM subjects to save money

It’s no surprise that the arts don’t get much funding. But several UK unis are now having such a financial flop era that they’re resorting to cutting back on STEM subjects to save money, too. Even a few fancy Russell Group unis have plans to make staff in science departments redundant.

The Financial Times found out that there are a quarter fewer chemistry courses, fifteen per cent fewer biochemistry courses and seven per cent fewer physics courses on offer to students than there were in 2020. Yikes. It’s not a good time for women in STEM.

So, here are all the UK unis which are resorting to cutting back on STEM subjects for the benefit of their bank balances.

Aston University

This uni in Birmingham is shaking up most of its STEM subects. It might be scrapping the chemistry department altogether. The uni announced early this year, “Due to changes in educational focus and alignment across the college we are proposing to close BSc Chemistry and BSc Applied Chemistry from Sept 2025.” Despite objections from students and staff, the uni hasn’t changed this plan yet.

Aston University is in the middle of restructuring the chemical engineering and applied chemistry department, the electronics and computer engineering department, and the applied mathematics and data science department in order to save money. 60 acacdemics in the engineering department and the physical sciences department are reportedly also at risk of being made reduntant.

Coventry University

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This uni is really not living, laughing or loving right now. According to Times Higher Education, the uni has an estimated shortfall of £100 million, and has proposed making 92 staff members reduntant. 200 more staff members could be transferred to a company owned by the uni called Peoples Futures Ltd, where they’d get fewer job benefits.

The University and College Union (UCU) estimate this will amount to at least 25 academics from the School of Economics, Finance and Accounting, and at least 25 less academics from the School of Engineering, Environment and Science.

University of Glasgow

At least Glasgow Uni still looks ravishing
(Image by Steve Houldsworth via Creative Commons)

The Uni of Glasgow is one of the UK Russell Group unis which plan to cut back on STEM subjects to save money. At the end of November, Glasgow announced that it might make more than 80 staff members from the Social and Public Health Sciences department redundant.

University of Hull

This uni is definitely shutting down the whole chemistry department for good. Students were a bit suprised by this as Hull’s chemistry department was known for being really good.  The Guardian ranked it as the fourth best uni for chemistry in 2024. A petition of 5,000 signatures wasn’t enough to save the chemistry department.

University of Central Lancashire (UCLan)

In 2024, UCLan realised it was facing a rather large deficit of £25 million in the 2024/2025 academic year, and it announced plans to cull the whole Chemistry department.

The uni is also contemplating cutting eight other subjects – French, German, international relations, philosophy, poltics, Russian, religion and Spanish. UCLan might also have to scrap TESOL courses (Teaching of English to speakers of other languages), which helps refugees learn English.

Oxford Brookes University

What even can you study at Brookes???
(Credit: Pierre Marshall via Creative Commons)

Brookes flat-out axed the whole maths department earlier this year, despite plenty of students and staff complainging and starting petitions.

University of Sheffield

The uni announced in October 2024 that it has a £50 million shortfall. Yikes. At the end of 2024, Sheffield started a voluntary severance scheme to encourage staff to leave their jobs, including in the civil engineering and materials engineering departments. People are stressing that the nuclear research centre might have to close after 100 job cuts were proposed.

Featured image of the University of Sheffield by Chemical Engineer via Creative Commons. Featured image of the University of Glasgow by Diliff via Creative Commons.