Revealed: The Russell Group unis which are axing the most staff to save money

Even fancy Russell Group unis are having serious money problems in 2025. Several are resorting to getting rid of your lecturers to save money. 10 out of 24 Russell Group unis ran voluntary redundancy schemes last year. The unis collectively spent way more money on severance packages than they did last year, according to the Financial Times. Here’s a deep dive into exactly how many staff each Russell Group uni offloaded in 2024. Honestly, at this rate, the students might have to start teaching themselves.

Oxbridge decided to ditch way more staff than the other Russell Group unis. Oxford Uni’s annual report clarifies the number of the staff they gave severance packages to is so high because 137 of those people worked for Oxford University Press, not the uni itself. Even so, if we didn’t count the Oxford University Press people, then Oxford would have still disposed of 100 more staff members than any other uni. Yikes.

Edinburgh Uni didn’t get rid of many staff members this year, because they spent a truly eye-watering £8.4 million on severance packages last year. According to the Glasgow website, “There were no payments for loss of office greater than £0.1m during the year”.

These numbers all came from each university’s annual accounts. Cardiff University and Newcastle University haven’t published their accounts from last year yet, which is why they’re not on the list.

So, without further waffling, here are all the Russell Group unis ranked by how many staff members they got rid of in the 2023/2024 academic year. Plus, how much money each uni spent on severance packages for them.

22. University of Glasgow – 0

21. University of Edinburgh –  spent £0.4 million

20. London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) – 47 staff, costing £0.7 million

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19. University of Birmingham – 58 staff, costing £1.8 million

The Birmingham Uni campus looking kind of bleak

18. University of Liverpool – 111 staff, costing £1.0 million

17. University of York – 113 staff, costing £1.5 million

16. Durham University –  119 staff, costing £1.2 million

15. University of Southampton – 122 staff, costing £0.5 million

14. University of Leeds – 125 staff, costing £2.1 million

13. Queen’s University, Belfast – 149 staff, costing £0.8 million

12. University of Bristol – 194 staff, costing £1.8 million

11. Imperial College London – 216 staff, costing £1.1 million

London uni students working extremely hard

=9. Queen Mary University of London – 218 staff, costing £3.2 million

=9. University of Warwick – 218 staff, costing £3.2 million

8. University of Exeter – 268 staff, costing £8.8 million

7. University College London (UCL) – 292 staff, costing £3.3 million

6. University of Manchester – 294 staff, costing £1.7 million

5. University of Sheffield – 298 staff, costing £3.9 million

4. King’s College London – 318 staff, costing £2.9 million

3. University of Nottingham – 408 staff, costing £13.8 million

2. University of Cambridge – 414 staff, costing £4.5 million

1. University of Oxford – 656 staff, costing £5.3 million

Featured image of the University of Nottingham by Barry Mangham via Creative Commons