Warwick deny recent figures published by the Guardian regarding precarious contracts

Warwick University were never contacted by The Guardian


A recent article by The Guardian highlighting precarious contracts at universities reported that 68.1 per cent of teaching staff at the University of Warwick are on short-term or zero-hours and other flexible contracts. However, the University have said that the figures are actually much lower.

When asked about the report earlier this week, Peter Dunn, the University’s Director of Press and Policy told us: “We do not recognise the figure they [The Guardian] quote for temporary contracts among teaching staff.

“Looking across the University at all staff who are either specialist teachers, or are undertaking both research and teaching, on a full time equivalent basis, 15 per cent are on fixed term or hourly paid contracts and the remainder are employed on permanent contracts.”

Peter Dunn added: “We were not actually contacted by the newspaper that carried this figure.”

He then explained that the data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, differentiated between “atypical” and “fixed-term contracts” – a distinction that The Guardian did not highlight.

“This you can see makes the table they created essentially meaningless, and it is not a surprise therefore that we do not recognise the statistic the newspaper quoted for temporary contracts among our teaching staff.”