Staff at higher education institutions: September 2021 to August 2022

Main points

• Overall, there has been a small rise in the number of staff at Welsh universities from 20,385 in 2020/21 to 20,625 in 2021/22 (up 1%).
• Staff numbers were higher in 2021/22 than they were in 2020/21 for University of Wales Trinity St. David (10% higher), Cardiff Metropolitan University (8% higher), University of South Wales (2% higher), Swansea University (1% higher) and Glyndwr University (1% higher).
• Staff numbers remained broadly similar for Cardiff University.
• Staff numbers were lower in 2021/22 than they were in 2020/21 for Bangor University (6% lower) and Aberystwyth University (2% lower).
• Cardiff University employed the most staff (6,935) followed by Swansea University (3,700).
• Glyndwr University was the smallest university in terms of staff numbers, employing 500 in 2021/22.
• Just under half of all staff (49%) were on academic contracts.
• 64% of academic contracts were full-time and 72% of non-academic contracts were full-time.
• Of those who weren’t on an academic contract, 4,580 (44%) were in professional or technical occupations,  3,545 (34%) were in administrative and secretarial occupations, 960 (9%) were managers, directors or senior officials and 700 (7%) were in ‘elementary occupations’.
• 55% of all staff positions were filled by women. However, they held 48% of academic contracts. Just over two thirds of all part-time staff were female (67%).
• 10%(r) of academic staff members reported they were able to teach through Welsh and 49%(r) of those were actually doing so.

(r) Revised on 16 January 2024. The figures produced in this headline were generated using a script that did not comprehensively account for missing data. As such, percentages for this particular point were calculated on totals that excluded a category of missing data, meaning that Welsh speaking and Welsh teaching staff were overreported in percentage calculations.

Staff numbers are calculated using the full-person equivalent for staff not on atypical contracts.