Academics at universities are being increasingly outnumbered by other staff, the FT reports. Looking at the changes in the figures since 2003, they've concluded that there has been an 33% increase in managers employed by the sector compared to a 9.9% increase in 'academic professionals' over the same period.
A spokesperson for Universities UK said that institutions now had a 'broader' role than in 2003, and were involved in “forging much closer links with business, maximising external sources of income from a wide variety of sources, engaging more closely with the public, local communities and schools, and carrying out widening participation activities. Many of these involve people in managerial roles working alongside academics".
Anna Fazackerley, of the policy think-tank Policy Exchange (who will be contributing at the BUFDG Annual Conference) agreed by saying that "there is no doubt that the government has made universities jump through ever more hoops to claim different pots of funding and that means more boxes to tick and more managers to tick them", but also queried whether it was "appropriate to hire so many managers when student-to-tutor ratios are so high?".
In a separate article in the FT, Stefan Stern ponders the question of what a 'manager' actually is.