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UK academic pay has risen significantly. But the disparities between disciplines and genders need to be addressed.
It may be crass to trumpet the recent boost in academic incomes when memories of the most bruising dispute to hit higher education for a generation are still fresh in people's minds, students are saddled with rising debt and support staff at some universities struggle on wages that would shame a sweatshop. But the fact is that most full-time, permanent academics are no longer badly paid.
UK academics command higher salaries than colleagues in the rest of the Commonwealth and those in the US, where the average full-time faculty member earned $73,207 (Pounds 36,320) in 2007. Admittedly, simple currency conversions cannot show how many hamburgers a professor can get to the pound and it's a fair bet that a square metre of a condo in Melbourne or Chicago will cost less than one in Bath or York. Nevertheless, British...