Working as a Graduate Teaching Assistant

Acting as a GTA provides you with an opportunity to broaden your experience at Imperial College, and develop further skills. These include learning to teach, convey complex technical concepts, writing/communication skills, etc. You may find that acting as a GTA helps you in improving your own technical abilities (both theoretical and practical), to broaden your knowledge base and to gain communication and task management experience.

Experience in teaching will set you apart from the other PhD students in applications for an academic career.  Acting as a GTA also allows you to contribute to the work of the Department and ‘give something back’ to our community. Your work as a GTA will be celebrated by the Department and Faculty of Engineering via the Best GTA Awards ceremonies.

Only students registered in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering may work as GTAs.  In exceptional circumstances, Module Organisers may make a case to the Director of Undergraduate Studies to employ a student from another Department.

If you are employed as a Research Assistant whilst studying for a PhD, you cannot receive additional payments for GTA work and you should not agree to undertake any.

In order to work as a GTA you will need to prove to Casual Worker Team that you are eligible to work in the UK, before you commence employment.  This applies to everyone, even UK nationals.  You will need to provide all relevant right to work documents. If you have a Tier 4 visa it must state that you are allowed to work. Please see the College's pages on right to work acceptable documents.

You will also require a National Insurance Number. To obtain an NI number, see the information online here.  Please note the National Insurance number process takes several weeks, sometimes months, so you should do this as soon as possible.

Tier 4 Visa Restrictions

International students holding Tier 4 visas cannot work for more than 20 hours per week.  If you have a visa please check the details regarding paid work.

In order to work as a GTA you must undertake GTA training.  There are two compulsory training workshops (3-hour each):

1. Introduction to Learning and Teaching
2. Introduction to Assessment and Feedback for Learning
3. Safeguarding at Imperial (Online module)
4. Managing Safety in Teaching Laboratories (Online Module)

You may attend any others if you wish to develop you teaching skills further.

Training dates can be found through this link.

GTA performance is monitored by the member of staff employing you. The students can comment on the quality of assistance provided by GTAs and this is used to determine if GTAs are retained for specific tasks.

IMPORTANT: You are not permitted to work until you have submitted your right to work and joining documents

Before applying for any GTA work you must follow the steps below to register as a casual worker. 

• Check that you are eligible to work in the UK (see section 2 above)
• Make sure you have a National Insurance Number
•  Agree the number of hours you will work in the year with your PhD supervisor (not to exceed 200 hours, with max 20 hrs per week for Tier 4 students)

To apply for any of the GTA positions above, please contact the module organiser.  Once you have been accepted by a module organiser, you can start the formal process of registering as a GTA.

The Good Work Plan legislation came into effect on 1 April 2020. It requires employers to provide a much greater level of detail about the registering of casual workers, in order to ensure full compliance with the legislation. 

All GTAs must now complete their full registration process with the College’s Casual Worker Team.  More information about the Casual Worker Team and the purpose of their role can be found on their webpage 

For all GTAs

Workers must submit the EE GTA 25-26 Appendix form form to eeecasualworkersupport@imperial.ac.uk and get approval before starting any work. Each work assignment needs a new Appendix to be submitted.

The Casual Worker Team will contact you and you will complete the rest of the registration process for your GTA work with their team. For new workers, this will involve providing your right to work documents plus National Insurance Number to them. There may be other documentation which you are required to complete, to register as a casual worker for your GTA work.

Once you have been contacted by the Casual Workers Team and have agreement for GTA work in place, the Appendix document is the only document which you need to provide to the department (eeecasualworkersupport@imperial.ac.uk) directly.

You are required to complete one Appendix document per each work assignment. Please note that the module organiser and your supervisor must both sign the Appendix document. 

If you have any queries about the registration requirements, please contact the Casual Worker team directly. The Casual Worker team will also be your point of contact for any queries relating to work available, payments or changes to details.

*Please remember you are required to complete your registration in full, before you can start working as a casual worker on a GTA assignment.

Hours and Expectations

Your main objective as a PhD student in the Department is to successfully complete your PhD.  Thus, the maximum number of hours you can spend working as a GTA is limited.  

You should not be asked to work more than 20 hours in any week or more than 200 hours over the course of an academic year.  If you are concerned about the number of hours you have committed to work, you must discuss this with the module organiser and Postgraduate Manager as soon as possible.

The maximum number of hours you can work as a GTA each academic year is determined by your PhD supervisor. It is expected that holders of fully-funded studentships and scholarships will not normally work for more than 100 hours in total over the academic year.  The absolute maximum the Department will allow is 200 hours per academic year.

Departments support only below listed GTA work. From 5th August 2024, GTA pay rates are below:

Claims must be submitted through the College's casual pay app for the modules you have registered to support. You should not commence employment if your Right to Work checks have not been completed by Casual Worker Team or submit backdated timsheets.   The User Guide and instructions on how to submit claims can be found on the College Casual worker webpage.

• You’ll be able to enter your time after each shift and save it for submission at the end of the week (Monday to Sunday). Please clarify, in the timesheet comments section, what type of work (as per above) you have done for each claim using the codes.
• Only submitted timesheets can be seen and approved by the hiring manager. 
• Rates of pay can be selected from the drop down menu. If you’re unsure which rate of pay to use, please check with
  • Education Office if you are a GTA or undertaking education related causal work
  • SRGA if undertaking research or administrative related casual work
  • EE GTA timesheet guidance 24-25

If you have any questions please email eeecasualworkersupport@imperial.ac.uk

You will find your monthly Payslip on My.Imperial.ac.uk. Please note that if you receive less payment than you expect from your GTA work, it may be due to statutory deductions.

Pension

All employers are required by law to enrol staff who meet certain criteria in a pension scheme to help people save more for their retirement. We have to make sure all staff are enrolled in a pension scheme every three years, even if you have opted out before.

If you want to be in a pension scheme, you don’t have to take any action. You will receive confirmation of your enrolment from the pensions office and the relevant pension scheme.

If you don’t want to be in a pension scheme, you can opt out by completing an opt-out form and returning it to pensions@imperial.ac.uk. If you change your mind after you have opted out, you can join a pension scheme at any time by contacting the pensions office.

If you have a query regarding statutory deductions on your Payslip, please contact casualworkerteam@imperial.ac.uk

If you no longer want to be registered as a casual worker or would like to end your contract please fill in this form and you will be contacted by the casual workers team.

Please make sure you have submitted all outstanding timesheets before submitting this form.