Pay Negotiations

The University is proposing to:

• Transfer all staff on grade 1 to grade 2,
• Increase the top of grades 2-5 by one spinal point,
• Increase the bottom of grade 3 (by three points), grade 4 (by two points), grade 5 (by one point) and grade 6 (by one point),
• Remove overlapping of pay grades for grades 2-4,
• Phase in some further changes to the top and bottom of some grades in August 2027 and August 2028, and
• Pay supervisors at least 50p more per hour more than those they supervise, in most cases.

You can read the full offer (including grade-specific scenarios) here.Link opens in a new window

Staff have faced sustained increases in housing, food, energy, transport and other essential costs. Successive below-inflation annual pay increases have substantially reduced the real value of Warwick salaries. At the bottom of the pay scale, recent increases have largely resulted from the Real Living Wage.

As the Real Living Wage overtakes the lowest spinal points, those points must either be removed or uplifted. The below-inflation increases to the rest of the pay scale have resulted in serious compression of pay in grades 1-5. The University's offer does not restore what most staff have lost or ensure that pay keeps pace with the wider labour market.

The extent of pay compression is clear from the University’s own published salary scale. Under the University’s proposal, progressing from the bottom of FA1 to the top of FA5 (as of August 2026) would increase a person's pay by £10,080, whilst FA6 alone would span £9,413. By 2028 in the University's proposal, FA1&2 will still be a single point salary offering no annual increment in salary (and likely to be overtaken in 2027 by the Real Living Wage), while the differences between grades remain small. The University describes its grading structure as providing “excellent incremental progression”, but that description does not reflect the reality for staff in FA1–FA5.

The phased implementation also means that some experienced staff who are moved upwards when the grade minimum changes will simply remain at the new bottom of their grade, paid at the same rate as newly appointed colleagues despite their length of service.

When the trade unions asked directly whether this offer represented the best that Warwick could afford, the University declined to answer. We therefore cannot assure members that this is the strongest offer the University could make. General financial difficulties across higher education do not, by themselves, answer the question of what Warwick can afford or how it chooses to prioritise its resources.

Recognising the financial context, the unions also proposed a substantial range of pay-related alternatives, including equalising annual leave between FA1–FA5 and higher grades (staff in FA1–FA5 currently receive 26 days, compared with 30 days in FA6–FA9), or a paid break for all staff (currently offered in some areas of the University but not all).

The University was not willing to include any of these proposals in the offer, primarily on the grounds of cost. We challenged the University’s costing of additional annual leave, which assumed that alladditional leave would need to be covered i.e. other staff paid to work those hours instead. We believe that assumption vastly overestimates the cost of the proposal.

We are disappointed that the University is unwilling to recognise these opportunities as part of an affordable fair deal.