At the lower end (lecturer/senior lecturer), where you are on the posted scale is what can be negotiated, and perhaps your start date. That's it. You can't be offered a senior lecturer position if the position was advertised as lecturer, and teaching reduction is normally out of the question.
Americans are sometimes under the impression that there is flexibility on these things, which just drags everything out needlessly. Only full professor appointments have flexible conditions.
^ So a British university wouldn't match an American salary to make a hire even if the American was far and away the best candidate? No wonder British universities struggle to get taken seriously.
What you see posted is the salary you can get when you are hired. They don't match an American salary.
If you get an offer from the US while teaching in the UK, they can promote you to a higher rank which would imply a higher salary. The better places might even give you a bit of a retention bonus, but it is unlikely to go into base salary, i.e. it will just be temporary.
Here's a typical scale:
Lecturer £40-47k
Senior Lecturer £48-55
Reader £56-70
Professor £60-110, but as mentioned, that's entirely up to negotiation and can go up to £150. I do know though that many profs in polisci have salaries in the 60s or 70s at most.
Remember that these are automatic increases until you hit the Reader level, so no arbitrariness with the merit pay like at many US universities, but after that it's all market based.
British universities are also under the strange impression that full professors make the most important contributions to the discipline, i.e. blokes in their 50s and 60s.
A decent UK job is a very good consolation prize if you've struck out on the US market, surely beats VAP, adjuncting, or taking anything that's not an R1.
^ helpful post, thank you
^^ Ok, but define "decent"
Reality is that teaching loads and general **** are high at all but the top 10 or so UK universities - so don't try to move outside Oxbridge, KCL, LSE, Durham, Manchester, maybe Edinburgh, Bristol, Warwick.
^I'm afraid you don't know what you're talking about. If you were more familiar with the UK system you would know (a) that Oxbridge jobs tend to carry a disproportionately high teaching load because they usually (though not always) involve teaching duties at both the university and the college level, and (b) that in many places without a tutorial system the normal teaching load is comparable to a 2-2 (if not a 2-1). (Plus, the places you mention aren't really the top ten if you are concerned with either research quality or PG teaching.)
But (a) there are compensations that coming from being at Oxford or Cambridge rather than, say, Plymouth; and (b) which universities are top ten? Essex? Strathclyde? Lancaster?
^^Dude, teaching load at Oxbridge is lower than other universities precisely because their lectures are supplemented by tutorials ("college teaching"). The system allows more faculty members to share the burden of teaching.
Top ten: Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Essex, KCL, Manchester, Sheffield, Warwick, Edinburgh, Leeds
By RAE 2008:
1. Essex
2. Sheffield
3. Aberystwyth (but there is still no good reason to live in West Wales)
4. Oxford
5. LSE
6. UCL
7. Sussex
8. Warwick
9. SOAS
10. Exeter
11. Cambridge
12. Manchester
^have no dispute with the list, but UK is a small country so being a "top 10 in UK" is not really that great. Apart from Oxford, and perhaps LSE and Cambridge, other "top ten" are pretty dumb.
UK population is close to 60m. That makes it a small country in comparison to 1.3m million Chinese, admittedly, but makes it 1/5 the size of the US.
Are you arguing that there are only 5 good universities in the US, or perhaps (counting LSE and Cambridge-like institutions) 15? Surely even the most prejudiced American would admit that there are 30-40 world class universities in the US? And that perhaps there might also be 8-10 good British ones?
Of this list, only Essex, Oxford, LSE and UCL are keen on American political science. The rest either think it's a totalizing discourse that threatens the emancipatory potential of political studies, or instinctively don't trust anyone who hasn't read Woolf, Manning, or Murray. Neither group takes well to the use of words like "model", "hypothesis" or "endogeneity". And don't even try "equilibrium" unless you're talking about a balancing act or the like.
I like how one of the posters called a UK job "a good consolidation prize". The previous posters acknowledged that a UK job would probably require 4 good publications. How many American ABDs have 4 publications, let alone 4 good ones? Moreover, look at the academic quality of a mid-level UK university (e.g. Birmingham) and compare that with the quality of one of the sought-after US positions this year (i.e. North Texas or University of Kentucky). In what way would UK be a consolidation prize and why do you think that landing one of those jobs would be easier than a US TT position?
^ I suppose at North Texas or Kentucky you would at least have colleagues who knew the word "consolation."
Also, four good publications by UK standards aren't that hard to produce because you don't need actual results, or even data for that matter.
In the US ABDs get TT positions. In the UK they don't (i.e lectureships). If you think you could easily get a UK position you're not very well informed.
Not to mention that you won't get a job at Birmingham unless you believe in irrational choice.
"Also, four good publications by UK standards aren't that hard to produce because you don't need actual results, or even data for that matter."
Because getting data is the hardest part in political science? Damn, you are stupid! Fortunately you still have 5-6 years before you go on the market, so please get off PSJR and start paying attention in your classes.
^ Terrified qually.
Did they fill any of the posts yet?
Great music scene.
I always heard that Reader was a bit better than Senior Lecturer, but not that much better (as the post above implies). When can one make the jump from Lecturer to Reader? (This question is not coming from an unemployed ABD, just someone ignorant of the UK system).
The post further up is a bit optimistic on pay at all levels IMHO. At my institution reader / SL are in the same pay bracket. People going for Reader tend to be lecturers with extremely good research (or have enough highly placed contacts willing to write letters claiming the research is excellent), but who don't meet the other criteria for SL promotion. But it's a nebulous role and seems to be the one that varies most between institutions. I had heard rumours that it was being phased out in various places.
In my institution, lecturer < senior lecturer < reader < professor, and you can't skip any of these steps. In some other institutions, including Manchester, you can jump straight from senior lecturer to professor (although it will take just as long whether you go via reader or not, and you may get paid more if you have a readership, although not always). I have never heard of anyone jumping from lecturer to reader without going via SL, except at Oxbridge where I don't think they have SLs. Bear in mind that in the UK, the standard is very different for "old" and "new" universities. In the "new" universities (granted university status since 1992, usually teaching-focused and less prestigious), a reader is equivalent to a senior lecturer in an old university. Ie the standard is much higher in research-intensive universities.
Do the post-92s have readers? I always thought you went from principal lecturer (which is the equivalent of SL in a pre-92) to chair? Wouldn't say the standard is always higher either by the way in the more prestigious institutions (even though I work for one) - dodgy promotions happen everywhere...
In post-92s, you can get promoted for your teaching and administration (= principal lecturer) or for your research (= reader then professor). In pre-92s, you can't get past SL without research.
Did they fill these posts yet?
News?
Anyone else having problems posting comments? I am having trouble with the "clickcha" crap.
News? Is anyone from Manchester even on here?