A total of 272 staff have left the University under a voluntary severance scheme introduced in April 2024 as part of a wider effort to reduce University finances and save £34 million.
The voluntary scheme was designed to address a £24 million deficit in the University’s finances and met its redundancy targets for professional services but targets for academic staff were not met.
In an email sent to staff, Vice Chancellor Charlie Jeffrey said: “The conversations of the last few months and especially those of the last few weeks have been difficult and painful.
“We will miss them both personally and as we adjust to different ways of working without them.”
Covering all academic departments, the scheme was part of the wider target of saving £34 million.
It involved staff voluntarily putting themselves forward for redundancy and a financial settlement for staff who accept the arrangements proposed by the University.
The University has focused its voluntary severance scheme on staff looking to retire early or move on from York.
A compulsory redundancy scheme was announced by the University in September 2024 requiring 30 academic staff redundancies over six years, but the University confirmed on 30 October 2024 that the compulsory scheme would be ending.
This comes as a result of the University accepting an alternative proposal to achieve savings on staff and other costs by voluntary support.
Jeffrey said that the upcoming budget was unlikely to favour higher education or resolve what he described as “deep-seated problems” in university funding.
“Some of the measures may even make university finances more difficult in the short term,” he said.
Around 6,100 staff are employed at the University of York and the institution has an annual turnover of £520 million.
York Vision interviewed the Vice Chancellor, Charlie Jeffrey and Pro Vice Chancellor for Teaching, Learning and Students, Tracy Lightfoot in September 2024.
Asked about a recovery plan for staff redundancies, Jeffrey said the University was reducing affected areas rather than ending them.
The Vice Chancellor said the schemes were necessary because inflation had increased the University’s running costs by around 20 per cent, roughly £45 million.
A decrease in international student applications had also reduced income by about £40 million.
Jeffrey added that these pressures were behind the postponement of the £35 million Student Centre for at least three years.
Jeffrey said: “We will get back to that as soon as we are in a stronger position.”
Lightfoot acknowledged the delays had affected student societies planning to use the space.
To address the gap in financial revenue, the University has 24 new degree programmes launching in September 2025 and is working on building agreements with international partners in India, China and the United States to bring more international students to York.
A University of York spokesperson said: “We have been tackling savings targets in several ways: postponing planned capital projects, extensive savings from how we are using our estate, energy-saving changes, and reducing other non-staff operating costs where we can.
“We have had a strong focus on comprehensive voluntary options to reduce staffing costs.”
The University and College Union (UCU) at the University has strongly criticised the University Executive Board’s decision to implement the voluntary redundancy scheme and structural changes to the University.
A statement on the UCU’s website stated that the scheme will force hundreds of staff to leave during semester one in October, severely impacting teaching quality, increasing workloads and harming the wellbeing of remaining staff.
There is a clear and articulated attempt to make the future look as bleak as possible so as many people as possible will leave.
The UCU
“What an appalling way to operate and it is this type of deliberate harm to our members that we cannot stand for,” The UCU said.
The UCU also criticised structural changes being made to the University through the “Changing the Way We Work” initiative which will centralise administrative services, abolish double-blind marking and remove the Board of Studies which are academic departmental committees that help run departments.
The UCU described the proposals as a “top-down mishmash of ideas” that would leave staff working conditions “irreversibly worse”. The Union said that removing the Board of Studies amounted to “empire building changes” that would centralise power, while ending double-blind marking would erode academic standards through “a race to the bottom and ditching proper academic standards in the pursuit of efficiency”.
The reforms have prompted the UCU to call on students, staff, alumni and local leaders to resist the changes which they argue will irreversibly damage the reputation and value of a University of York degree.
Vice President of the UCU’s York branch Jonathan Fanning welcomed the withdrawal of the compulsory redundancy scheme but said some staff “remain at risk”. He said that internal reassignment should replace staff redundancies.
On compulsory redundancy, Fanning said: “The University management never demonstrated beyond doubt that reductions to payroll are the only possible solution to its financial problems.”
Without clear financial data, he said the University could exceed its financial surplus targets “meaning that many job losses, and their impacts upon student experience, would in fact have been unnecessary”.
Fanning also questioned whether the voluntary severance scheme was genuinely voluntary, stating that a number of staff felt they “had no choice” but to accept reduced hours, limiting their availability to students.
York SU Union Affairs Officer Lewis Parrey said the University’s approach to tackling its financial difficulties had resulted in an “extreme course of cuts and redundancies” and that “the speed of University actions has resulted in the student experience being neglected, which should never be the case”.
He said that students need more support, yet staff who want to provide it are often unable to because of shrinking resources and reduced staffing.
According to Parrey, the University should now focus on reinvesting in student services rather than slipping into a “mentality of stagnation” which he warned would be detrimental to York students.
The Union Affairs Officer said that the Students’ Union would continue to hold the University to account and push it to prioritise students going forward.
York SU Academic Officer Fenella Johnson said: “It’s not going to be evenly spread across the University. Some students will notice it, and some might not notice anything at all.”