The earnings gap between UK vice-chancellors and their employees is growing, according to data on more than 100 institutions that reveal a bumper pay-off for former University of Birmingham vice-chancellor Sir David Eastwood.

A Times Higher Education analysis of the financial statements of 118 higher education providers published to date puts the median vice-chancellor’s pay package at £308,000 in 2021-22 – a 2 per cent increase from £301,000 the year before.

This included a median base salary – used to stop figures being skewed by particularly small or large wages – of £257,500, which typically comes alongside other benefits such as housing and pensions.

The average pay package for vice-chancellors was seven and half times larger than the median pay for all other employees, up from 7.2 the year before and as high as 15 at Imperial College London.

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Alice Gast, who stepped down as Imperial’s president in July, topped the table for both total remuneration and pay rise, with her £714,000 package up 28 per cent on 2020-21. Much of the increase reflected a change in the tax treatment of Professor Gast’s on-campus accommodation at Imperial.

Birmingham, meanwhile, spent £601,000 on former vice-chancellor Sir David (£372,000) and current leader Adam Tickell (£229,000) in 2021-22.

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The bumper payout includes £120,000 for Sir David as part of a long-term incentive plan and a further £70,000 performance-related award.

Birmingham said that Sir David had a “long-term incentive plan”, with rewards “contingent on the vice-chancellor meeting specific objectives in each of the years of the term and still being in post at the end of the term”. “No long-term incentive plan is in place for the current vice-chancellor,” it added.

Of the 21 Russell Group universities to have published their accounts so far, the median package rose from £375,000 to £382,000 in 2021-22.

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Vice-chancellors outside the mission group averaged £303,000, up from £286,000 year-on-year.

High earners included Bob Cryan at the University of Huddersfield (£408,000) and Peter John at the University of West London (£407,000).

Jo Grady, general secretary of the University and College Union, said there was “no justification whatsoever for a vice-chancellor to earn almost eight times more than the staff who teach, research and support students”.

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“This widening gulf is yet further proof that those who lead the sector have their priorities wrong,” she said.

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com