Written copy of Imperial's full and final pay offer 24/25 below (or download PDF: Imperial's full and final pay offer 24/25)

Dated: 13 March 2024 (Replaces Final and Final letter dated 8 March 2024)

To the Joint Trade Unions’ Local Pay Representatives

Dear Colleagues,

Without prejudice

As we close the 2024/2025 local pay negotiations with UCU, Unite and UNISON (the Joint Trade Unions or JTUs), the University representative negotiating team is pleased that both sides were able to attend a bespoke facilitated workshop with ACAS. The mutual commitments made during the ACAS workshop have been tangibly felt throughout our positive negotiating meetings, which both sides have agreed have now come to an end.

The University representatives welcomed the frank discussions during our meetings and your decision to revise your original pay claim on two occasions, with your final claim being for a consolidated £1,000 from 1 January 2024 and a further 4.5% from 1 August 2024, which comes to an estimated total cost of £43.1m. 

We explained that Imperial could not fully match this at our penultimate meeting. However, we agreed for this to be discussed again at the February University Management Board (UMB) meeting to determine if Imperial’s pay mandate could be extended.

Imperial Pay Offer 2024/25

The UMB members have asked that we make you aware that they fully appreciate your efforts as part of this annual process. They further requested that we share the Board’s commitment to support our staff and seek to deliver a sustainable pay award.

If an agreement is reached, this includes the decision made during the October UMB meeting that an element of the 2024/ 2025 pay award be brought forward to reflect the reduction in USS contributions, which both USS members and employers have benefited from since 1 January 2024.

The February UMB meeting agreed to extend the pay mandate. Imperial’s increased full and final offer for pay year 2024/25 is set out below. 

  • £1,000 early consolidated increase to annual full-time pay to be implemented from 1 January 2024.
  • Additional 3.14% pay increase across the board to be implemented from 1 August 2024.

UMB, as part of their deliberations and final decision to extend the pay mandate, agreed to ensure that all staff would receive a minimum increase of 4% The above pay increases combined provide this, and additional adjustments will be made as part of the 1 August 2024 uplift to ensure all salaries meet this 4% minimum.

The approximate total cost to the University of this final offer is £34.9m, which includes the early increase in pay of circa £5.8m.

Proposed 2024/25 pay scales uplifts:

1 January 2024 increase

£1,000 consolidated uplift to all spine points and fixed salaries (full-time or pro rata thereof).

  • The distribution of the award in this way (excluding any incremental increases) for the 52-point pay scale for the Professional, Technical, Operational and Learning job families means that from 1 January 2024, there will be a greater increase in salaries for the lower to middle paid staff:
    • Staff earning between £26,755 and £32,991: an increase of 3.7%, reducing to a 3.0% increase.
    • Staff earning between £33,632 to £49,910: an increase of 3.0%, reducing to a 2.0% increase.
    • Staff earning £51,201 and £80,701: an increase of 2.0% reducing to a 1.2% increase.
    • Staff earning salaries above the 52-point pay scale from a starting salary of £84,400 will see a 1.2% increase reducing to a 0.3% increase by £305,000.
  • The 29-point pay scales for the Academic, Research and Teaching job families will see the following increases:
    • Staff earning between £40,694 and £49,305: an increase of 2.5%, reducing to a 2.0% increase.
    • Staff earning between £51,417 and £75,184: an increase of 1.9%, reducing to a 1.3% increase

Further pay increase to be implemented from 1 August 2024:

A minimum 3.14% pay increase across the board, but with additional adjustments made to salaries to ensure the pay offer in its entirety delivers a 4% minimum increase for all staff.

  • The total pay uplift in its entirety (consolidating both the £1,000 salary uplift from 1 January 2024 and the remaining percentage increase from 1 August 2024) for the 52-point pay scale for the Professional, Technical, Operational and Learning job families will result in a total pay increase for the following staff:
    • Staff earning between £26,755 and £32,991: an increase of 7.0%, reducing to a 6.3% increase.
    • Staff earning between £33,632 to £51,201: an increase of 6.2%, reducing to a 5.2% increase.
    • Staff earning between £52,558 and £72,331: an increase of 5.1%, reducing to a 4.6% increase.
    • Staff earning between £74,337 and £80,701: an increase of 4.5%, reducing to a 4.4% increase.
    • Staff earning salaries above the 52-point pay scale will receive an increase reducing from 4.4%. The minimum 4.0% increase will apply to all salaries starting from £120,000 and above.
  • Following the same approach for the 52-point pay scale for the Professional, Technical, Operational and Learning job families, the 29-point pay scales for the Academic, Research and Teaching job families will result in a total pay increase for the following staff:
    • Staff earning between £40,694 and £55,941: an increase of 5.7%, reducing to a 5.0% increase.
    • Staff earning between £58,345 and £75,184: an increase of 4.9%, reducing to a 4.5% increase.
    • Staff earning salaries above the 29-point pay scale will receive an increase reducing from 4.5%. The minimum 4.0% increase will apply to all salaries starting from £120,000 and above.

Please see the proposed pay scales in Appendix A and B (within the PDF letter attachment - above).

Following on from the above, we are aware that there may be employees who are currently receiving means tested benefits, and therefore, the above salary adjustments may affect the benefits they currently receive. To help mitigate the impact on their benefits, if the University offer is accepted in its entirety, an online form will be made available to all staff for anyone who would like to declare that they are currently receiving means tested benefits. These details will then be passed onto our Payroll team, who will apply the backdated January to May pay award in a more staggered way for the employees in question to ensure that their benefit payments are not adversely affected.

Professional, Technical, Operational and Learning (PTO&L) Pay Scale

Subject to this offer being agreed on in its entirety, we are committed to commencing work on a new Professional, Technical, Operational, and Learning grading, and salary scale. As shared during the negotiation meetings, this will involve the following:

Establishment of a dedicated Working Group, led by the Registrar and University Secretary, including local JTU membership, with terms of reference covering the following aspects. For the avoidance of any doubt, this is not a negotiating group.

  • Recommendation of a revised grading structure to comply with the Equality Act (Age).
  • Creation of clear and concise Professional, Technical and Operational job family criteria and the introduction of generic role profiles.
  • Review of the London HEI and other sectors' median to upper quartile benchmarks obtained from independent external providers by the HR Reward team.
  • Development of draft new pay structures and options for implementation for the new grading structure as informed by the benchmark information.

We will aim to conclude the Working Group element of the work before the commencement of the 2025/26 pay negotiations. We will discuss with you when negotiations should commence on the final draft pay structure and approaches to implementation. The outcome of this will be subject to formal University Management Board approval.

Consultation with union members

Like you, we are keen to reach an agreement and have configured the offer to reflect this.

The pay offer needs to be accepted in its entirety. In the event the offer is rejected, the College will review its position on the 1 August pay element, and in particular, staff will not receive the £1000 uplift.

Following on from what was mutually agreed during our recent ACAS session, any reached pay agreement will be in the spirit of looking forward and, therefore, the closing of all outstanding disputes.

Imperial’s offer is made without prejudice, and as agreed at ACAS, you can share this offer with your committee members 24 hours before we post it on the College webpages. However, following on from your email dated 5 March, we would be happy to meet again to discuss the letter content further and provide further clarifications before the full and final pay offer letter is uploaded online. An online Teams meeting holder has been scheduled for Wednesday 13 March at 2:30 pm. If your position has changed on this, please let us know, and we can cancel the meeting.

As agreed, you will inform us of your members’ response to the offer on 3 April 2024. We will now start to work with the relevant colleagues on the implementation of the offer, and if it is accepted, pay will be implemented in the May 2024 payroll.

Yours sincerely

Audrey Fraser, on behalf of the University negotiating team

Cc:       Harbhajan Brar – Director of HR, Richard Craster – Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Peter Haynes – Vice Provost (Education & Student Experience), Tony Lawrence – Chief Financial Officer, Tim Venables – Faculty Operating Officer, Faculty of Engineering, Lynne Cox – Director of Research Office, Jane Neary – Deputy Chief to Property Officer, Director of Campus Services, Emily Michael – Reward & Benefits Manager

CC:      Staff side representatives

Tom Pike – UCU, Vijay Tymms – UCU, Amanda Sackur – UCU Charlotte Kestner - UCU, Tanya Hunt – Unison, Boyanna Petrovich – Unison, Suzy Ford - Unison, Ahlam Khamliche – Unite, Andrew Murray – Unite, Mike Jones – Unite, Antonio Mateiro - Unite