Salaries
Our pay scales
Since 2006, we’ve been part of the National Framework Agreement which
modernised pay structures and reformed collective bargaining in HE. This means
that we now use a nationally agreed 51 point pay structure (or pay spine/scale).
Increases to the pay spine are normally negotiated nationally from August each
year.
We can amend the pay spine to make sure it’s suitable for our needs, so the
Essex Pay Scale actually
has two extra points at the top. Incremental dates for progression within grades
on the pay spine are 1 August for Grades 1 to 6 and 1 October for Grades 7 to
11.
Along with over 120 HE institutions we also use a job evaluation scheme called
HERA (Higher Education Role Analysis) to grade all posts in the pay structure –
apart from academic and research posts. These posts are graded via HERA based
national role profiles and
the University’s own
Annual Review procedures.
Essex pay scale showing 1
August 2012 increase and hourly rates (opens as Excel spreadsheet)
We also publish separate pay scale documents for:
- Academic Staff
- Craft Staff
- Day Nursery Staff (with University of Essex Terms and Conditions)
- Manual Staff
- Patrol Staff
- Research Staff
- Senior Support Staff – Grades 7-11
- Support Staff – Office and General Support Grades 1-6
(Each of these links opens a PDF.)
The idea of the national scheme and the introduction of job evaluation was to:
- recognise the contribution staff at all levels make to UK higher education
- recognise the need for people to be properly rewarded
- recognise and reward individual contributions
- modernise pay arrangements to improve recruitment and retention
- make sure people got equal pay for work of equal value
- tackle problems of low pay
- underpin opportunities for career and organisational development.
It also allows us to:
- harmonise working hours within each pay grade
- make progression through and between grades fair and transparent
-
use extra pay points at the top of grades to reward people’s contributions and the experience they acquire
-
make sure all staff have access to development and reviews