Official statistics
Sta/Medr/01/2025: Staff at higher education institutions: August 2023 to July 2024
29 Jan 2025
Introduction
This publication provides information about staff employed at higher education institutions in Wales as collected in the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) Staff Record. Previous versions of this series were published by the Welsh Government and can be found on the Welsh Government website.
Main points
- Overall, there has been a 4% rise in the number of staff at Welsh universities from 21,815 in 2022/23 to 22,635 in 2023/24.
- Staff numbers were higher in 2023/24 than they were in 2022/23 for Cardiff University (10%), Wrexham University (9%), University of Wales Trinity Saint David (9%), Cardiff Metropolitan University (5%) and University of South Wales (4%).
- Staff numbers were lower in 2023/24 than they were in 2022/23 for Swansea University (1%), Aberystwyth University (4%) and Bangor University (8%).
- Cardiff University employed the most staff (7,760) followed by Swansea University (3,825).
- Wrexham University was the smallest university in terms of staff numbers, employing 585 staff in 2023/24.
- Staff are evenly split between academic and non-academic contracts across the sector, both accounting for 50% of all staff.
- 60% of academic contracts were full-time and 74% of non-academic contracts were full-time.
- Of those on non-academic contracts 5,130 (45%) were in professional or technical occupations, 3,745 (33%) were in administrative and secretarial occupations, 1,055 (9%) were managers, directors or senior officials and 735 (7%) were in elementary occupations. The definitions of these occupation groups come from the nine Major Groups of the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) 2020.
- 56% of staff across the sector were female. However, only 49% of academic contracts were held by female staff. Two thirds of all part-time staff were female (65%).
- 9% of academic teaching staff reported that they were able to teach through Welsh and of those, 46% were known to be teaching in Welsh.
Staff numbers are calculated using the full-person equivalent for staff at 1 December of the reporting year. Staff on atypical contracts are not included. Atypical staff are those members of staff whose contracts involve working arrangements that are not permanent, involve complex employment relationships and/or involve work away from the supervision of the normal work provider.
Data
The data is available on StatsWales and HESA Open Data.
Quality and methodology information
Figures are based on the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) Staff Record. For Welsh institutions submitting to the staff record data is required for all academic staff, and for non-academic staff if the contract is not atypical. Data also need not be returned for agency staff, self-employed staff, honorary contracts where the contract is not deemed to be a contract of employment and staff not employed by the HEI, but by a company consolidated into the HEI’s accounts.
Non-atypical staff full-person equivalent (FPE) counts are calculated on the basis of contract activities that were active on 1 December of the reporting period. Atypical staff FPE counts are calculated on the basis of those individuals who have only atypical contracts that were active during the reporting period.
More information related to definitions used can be found at www.hesa.ac.uk/support/definitions/staff.
Statement of Compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics
Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.
All of our statistics are produced and published in accordance with our Statement of Compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics and other statistical policies.
These official statistics demonstrate the standards expected around trustworthiness, quality and public value in the following ways.
Trustworthiness
This is produced by professional statisticians complying to the Code of Practice for Statistics. Release dates are pre-announced, protocols around data confidentiality are followed.
Quality
The data is sourced from the HESA Staff Record which collects data from higher education providers across the UK. When the data is submitted it is checked against various quality rules with further quality checks undertaken by analysts producing analysis.
Value
These statistics provide information on the staff working at higher education institutions in Wales.
Contact
Email: [email protected]
Sta/Medr/01/2025: Staff at higher education institutions: August 2023 to July 2024
Official statistics reference: Sta/Medr/01/2025
Date: 29 January 2025
Summary: This publication provides information about the staff employed at higher education institutions in Wales as collected in the Higher Education Statistics Agency Staff Record data collection.
Sta/Medr/01/2025 Staff in Higher Education 2023/24Secondary documents
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