Revealed: The Russell Group universities paying the most staff over £100,000

It seems that at pretty much any moment, staff at several UK unis are striking over job cuts or pay (or both). Not every lecturer is cash-strapped, though. All the Russell Group unis are still paying loads of senior staff £100,000 or more.

The Russell Group university that pays the most staff over £100,000 is… drum roll please… University College London (UCL). This uni dishes out £100,000+ salaries to a the full-time equivalent of 1,075 staff. It makes sense that UCL would have the most high-earning staff, as it’s the Russell Group uni with the most students. Although, the University of Manchester is a similar size, and it only has the full-time equivalent of 408.

Staff at the London Russell Group unis seem to generally be raking in more money. The London School of Economics and Political Science is much smaller than the other Russell Group unis, yet pays 427 staff more than £100,000. Presumably these lectures had the economics know-how to work there.

Remember, the University of Cambridge, Durham University and the University of Oxford have college that deal with their finances separately. The colleges may well employ other staff with large salaries. The Oxbridge colleges can certainly afford to.

Trinity, the richest Oxbridge college (by far)

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A boring but important note: This information all comes from each university’s most recently published annual accounts. For the University of Bristol, Imperial College London, King’s College London (KCL), the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), the University of Manchester, the University of Oxford, Queen Mary University of London, Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Southampton, that’s the 2025 accounts. For everywhere else, that’s the 2024 accounts. Most of these figures don’t include the vice-chancellor and other key management personal. None of these figures factor in payments made by the NHS (or anywhere else) to clinical staff, who often do end up earning £100,000 altogether.

So, here are all the Russell Group unis ranked by how many staff they pay more than £100,000:

24. Newcastle University – 102

23. Durham University – 118

=21. Cardiff University – 128

=21. University of York –  128 FTE

20. Queen’s University Belfast- 129

19. University of Nottingham – 207.02 FTE

18. University of Glasgow – 222

17. University of Edinburgh – 229

16. Queen Mary University of London – 254

15. University of Liverpool – 256

Liverpool Uni looking vibey at sunset

14. University of Birmingham – 258

13. University of Exeter – 273

12. University of Warwick – 290.2 FTE

11. University of Southampton – 296

10. University of Bristol – 312

9. University of Sheffield – 342 FTE

8. University of Oxford – 357

Oxford looking very Oxford-y

7. University of Leeds – 382 FTE

6. University of Manchester – 408 FTE

5. King’s College London (KCL) – 423.3 FTE

4. London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) – 427 FTE

3. Imperial College London – 840

2. University of Cambridge – 899 FTE

1. University College London (UCL) – 1,075 FTE

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Featured image of UCL by Gnesener1900.