The College is committed to offering a total remuneration package that is equitable, fair, and appropriately reflects our standing as a world-leading university based in London.

Human Resources undertakes an annual benchmarking exercise to review the College’s salaries against the Russell Group, London Higher Education Sector, agreed relevant benchmark comparators, and London market pay rates. This information is shared with the University Management Board, whose members review the College’s approach to pay. This includes the annual pay award, benefits, and the criteria for the review of individual salaries.

At the College, local pay bargaining takes place annually to decide whether there will be a salary increase (pay award) for staff employed on the College’s local pay scales.

The College negotiates with the Joint Trades Unions (JTUs) – UCU, UNISON and UNITE – to determine if there should be an increase in pay and the rate. When negotiations have ended, any agreed annual salary increase (known as the annual pay award) is applied to all salaries covered by pay bargaining from 1 August.  If negotiations have not concluded by 1 August or have been delayed, any pay award is usually backdated to the 1 August.

2024 Local Pay Negotiations

The 2024/25 local pay negotiation meetings will commence in January 2024. 

If you have any questions regarding the above, please contact one of the following:

Harbhajan Brar
Director of Human Resources
020 7594 5540
directorofhr@imperial.ac.uk

Audrey Fraser
Deputy HR Director (Strategic Partnering and Reward)
020 7594 5547
audrey.fraser@imperial.ac.uk

Vijay Tymms
UCU President
020 7594 5238
v.tymms@imperial.ac.uk

Tanya Hunt
UNISON Secretary
020 7594 5887
t.hunt@imperial.ac.uk

Ahlam Khamliche
UNITE Chair
0207 594-2599
a.khamliche@imperial.ac.uk 

Which salaries are covered by the local pay bargaining?

The academic, research and professional, technical, operational services, learning and teaching salary scales are covered by this local pay bargaining process.

Which salaries are not covered by the local pay bargaining?

Clinical salary scales – which are set by the NHS, not by the College – are not covered by this process.

For staff who are employed on the national pay scales, any annual pay award is determined by national pay negotiations between UCEA (the Universities and Colleges Employers’ Association) and HE Trade Unions.

How does the local pay bargaining process work?

The pay bargaining process for 2024/25 will commence from January with the aim to conclude negotiations by the end of February 2024. The process will run as follows:

1. The University Management Board (UMB) will consider affordability as the principal requirement to determine what the annual pay award should be. They will also look at:

• recruitment and retention data from Imperial
• higher education institutions and other sectors’ pay awards
• benchmark salary data

2. The UMB will set the pay mandate, which is the total amount of money that can be spent by the College on the annual pay award.
3. The JTUs make their pay claim which sets out a request for a specified pay increase amount, including the rationale behind this.
   
   
4. The College Negotiating Team and UMB members will review the JTU pay claim and raise any queries they may have on this (in writing) with the JTU members in advance of the opening meeting. The College Negotiating Team will also produce costings of the JTU claim before the opening meeting and send that to the JTU side in advance.
   
   
5. At the opening meeting, the College Negotiating Team will present an initial response to the JTU pay claim (in line with the pay mandate set by the UMB).
   
   
6. There will be a number of negotiating meetings which will take place on a mutually agreed basis. The maximum meeting threshold seen in previous years has been removed for this year to enable both sides additional time and flexibility to present their claims and come back with any follow up queries and responses following each adjourned meeting.
   
   
7. Following each meeting, both the College Negotiating side and the JTU side will draft joint statements on the progress made. These statements will be published on this webpage and be available to view by all staff.
   
   
8. At the end negotiations, a final, written offer will then be submitted by the College Negotiating Team to the JTUs. The JTUs will share this with committee members and trade union members 24 hours ahead of it being published to this webpage.
   
   
9. The final written offer will be presented by the JTUs to their members for a vote on whether to accept or reject the offer. The outcome of the JTU members vote will be presented to the UMB who will make a final decision on what action to take.
   
   
10. In previous years, the typical process sees the HR team apply any salary increase to all salaries covered by local pay bargaining, effective from 1 August (with the changes to salaries processed by Payroll). Where a decision to implement a pay award is made after 1 August, the pay award is backdated to 1 August. For this year’s negotiations, the UMB have committed to bring forward an element of the College’s full and final pay offer to January (to reflect the savings from the reduced USS contributions) with the remainder of the pay award paid in August 2024.

Who is involved in local pay bargaining?