By Alicia Tariq

Over 1000 staff at Cardiff University have received notice that their roles are at risk. On Thursday November 6th, a formal S188 notice of risk of redundancies were issued to the three campus trade unions. The UCU stated that “Cardiff University has now put at least 41% of their overall staff at risk of losing their current jobs in a single year”. Cardiff university has said they want to completely avoid compulsory redundancies in the new year, but the new restructures of professional services “remove and downgrade many jobs and open a voluntary redundancy scheme for those staff”.

In September, we saw Cardiff UCU hold a consultive ballot for a new strike due to unfair pay and high-pressure workloads for university staff. The ballot ran from October 13th to November 17th. As a result, the consultative ballot had a higher turnout in comparison to the previous consultative ballot in November 2024, with 87% of UCU members voting for strike action and 88% for action short of a strike.
A senior professional services staff member has said this new notice has “created significant stress, particularly as the decision falls so close to the Christmas period, a time that should be spent with my family rather than facing uncertainty about employment and income”.

A UCU union representative said it is “cruel” to leave university staff uncertain to whether they’ll return to their jobs after Christmas and that “staff have been breaking their backs to keep this institution running”.
Cardiff UCU’s independent financial analysis of the case for the cuts found that Cardiff University currently has in excess of £188 million in accessible cash, and “this can be used to turn things around positively… and would negate any argument for the need to cut jobs and pose zero risk to the institution”. The opening of the university’s new campus in Astana, Kazakhstan surely did not help with the its budget deficit, and has been heavily criticised since its opening in September. The university’s own risk-assessment policies admit that a new campus involves “significant investment in staff and facilities to replicate what happens at Cardiff”.

Many staff who are at risk of redundancies were unable to speak out against the cuts because of a widely reported “climate of fear” by senior managers. However, there have been many supporters, including celebrities such as Ed Sheeran, Sir Elton John, Harry Styles, and Stormzy, as well as numerous MPs and MSes across parties, and public figures such as Former Labour Leader Neil Kinnock.
The Cardiff Branch of UCU is currently preparing for a legal ballot for strike action to prevent compulsory redundancies and prevent work overload. However, students may face disruption to their studies in the new year. The UCU is committed to stand against compulsory redundancies from January 2026 to protect academic staff still at risk and to keep pressure on senior management to remove staff redundancies.