Uni defends £430,000 salary of vice-chancellor
THE University of Birmingham has defended vicechancellor Sir David Eastwood’s huge £439,000-a-year salary, saying the university’s performance had “improved markedly” with “high levels of student satisfaction”.
The salaries of university leaders across the country have faced criticism with Labour peer Lord Adonis labelling the amount “far too high – it should be cut to no more than £200,000”.
The salaries were revealed by Times Higher Education magazine which said the average salary of a vice-chancellor was £331,641, rising to £355,670 with employer pension contributions added.
Sir David Eastwood is now the highest-earning university vicechancellor in the country. As well as his basic salary of £439,000, it was revealed that he is on a long-term bonus plan with a maximum value of £80,000, payable at the end of 2019-20. His salary was for the year 2016/17.
In a statement, the University of Birmingham defended his salary, saying he was a “highly successful and experienced leader of a complex organisation”.
The statement said: “Professor Sir David Eastwood is recognised within the higher education sector as a highly successful and experienced leader of a large, complex organisation with global reach.
“There is a global market for talented university leaders, with many Australian and North American universities paying significantly more than leading UK institutions: a reality which needs acknowledging if the UK wishes to retain its position as being second only to the US for its HE system.
“Under Sir David’s leadership, it is widely recognised that the university’s performance has improved markedly. Aspects of this rise include high levels of student satisfaction, Gold in the Teaching Excellence Framework, huge demand from applicants for our courses, the best QAA report in the sector, amongst the highest levels of graduate employment in the sector, growth in the value of research grants and quality of research and improved positions in the domestic league tables.”
A proposed new code on university bosses’ pay has been published by the Committee of University Chairs (CUC).
It says the process for setting pay must be transparent and that institutions should take into account factors such as the value an individual provides to their institution and the context in which the university operates.
In 2015/16, the typical salary of a UK vice-chancellor was 6.4 times that of the average university worker.