The Russell Group Vice-Chancellors who received the most eye-watering pay rises last year

It’s no secret that the Vice Chancellors of your uni are on way, way too much money whilst your student loan hardly even covers the rent for your mouldy little box room on campus. 18 out of 24 of the Russell Group universities had pay rises in the 2022 academic year and all of them earn over six figures, naturally.

At the top of the list is Imperial’s Vice Chancellor Alice Gast who received a stonking huge pay rise of £194,800 since the 2020-2021 academic year. In total, she received an insane yearly salary of £714,000. But the VC was embroiled in a scandal in 2020 after an official investigation found that she bullied members of staff at the university.“I am very sorry that I bullied someone,” she said in a report following the investigation. Gast was also criticised for the university’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Following Imperial with a pay increase of £83,000 in a single year is, shock, The University of Oxford. Oxford’s new VC Irene Tracey was appointed in January of this year but her predecessor, Louise Richardson earned £542,000 in the 2022 academic year compared to the £459,000 of the previous year.

Stephen Toope, the former VC of Cambridge received a total salary of £536,000 in 2022 compared to £475,000 in the year previous. This gave the Vice Chancellor a pay rise of £61,000 in a single year.

Meanwhile, students at universities across the UK are struggling to get by in the cost of living crisis. The average graduate salary of a Russell Group student is also £25,000. This means it would take a Russell Group grad over 28 years to make what the top earning VC makes in a month.

Also included in this chart is also the Russell Groups which saw a change in Vice Chancellor part way through the academic year. Bristol, Durham, Exeter, UCL, Birmingham and Warwick VC’s pay were all lower in the 2022 academic year than the year previous due to a change in leadership and only a fraction of the salary being included in the data.

So here are the most ridiculous pay rises of the Russell Group Vice Chancellors:

Featured images before edits via YouTube. 

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