Executive Summary - Staff Monitoring Report 2022/23

  • Age: The average age of our staff population is 49.5 years. The large majority (74%) of academic staff are within the over 45 age bracket with an average age of 53 years. In contrast, the majority of professional and support staff (53%) are 45 years and under and 47% are over 45 years, with an average age of 44 years. The highest average age is in the Associate Lecturer population (54.5 years) and the lowest average age is Research Staff (41.6 years).
  • Disability: The proportion of colleagues with a disability continues to rise for the consecutive year in a row and now stands at 8.6%, the largest rise in representation since 2018/19. When looking at the representation across all employee subgroups, disabled staff are most represented in the Regional Academic (10.3%) and Associate Lecturer (9.8%) employee subgroups. In contrast, the smallest representation of disabled staff (5.3%) is among the Research Staff employee subgroup. The representation of disabled staff at senior level is also the highest it has been in the last five years at 5.8%, an increase of 1 percentage point from the previous year 2021/22 and 1.4% away from our Equality Scheme target. This increase in representation at the senior level is largely due to more disabled colleagues entering PB1 grades. The number of applications from disabled candidates has increased from 6.9% in 2021/22 to 7.3% in 2022/23. The proportion of disabled candidates increased at the shortlisting stage making up 8.5% of all shortlisted applicants. However, fewer disabled candidates were successful after interview, making up 5.3% of new appointments.
  • Ethnicity: the representation of colleagues from racially minoritised communities continues to rise and is now at 11.8%, the highest representation since 2018/19. The largest representation of staff from racially minoritised communities is in the Research Staff population (28.7%) followed by Support Staff (18.9%). In contrast, the lowest representation is at the Associate Lecturer level where racially minoritised colleagues make up 7.6% of the population. The representation at senior level has increased by 1.2 percentage points going from 11.1% to 12.3%, led largely by minority ethnic staff in professor grades (15.1%). Racially minoritised colleagues are underrepresented in SS grades and only make up 8.8% of the SS0-SS5 band population. There is a marginal drop (-0.1%) in representation of Asian colleagues at the senior level compared to the previous year 2021/22; however, all other minority ethnic group’s representation at senior level increased since 2021/22. Black colleagues are the least represented minority community at senior level, particularly in professor grades where Black staff account for 1.2% (n= < 3) of PB grades. With regards to recruitment, a third of applications (33%) were from candidates from racially minoritised communities. However, applicants from racially minoritised communities were less likely to be successful after interview compared to white applicants – of all minority ethnic candidates interviewed, 20.9% were successful compared to 27.5% of all white applicants.
  • Religion: 44% of OU colleagues identify as having no religion or belief while 40% identify as being a member of a particular religion or belief community. Of people with a religion or belief, a third identify as being Christian (31%), followed by those identifying as Spiritual (6%), Muslim (5%) and other religion or belief not listed (4%). There is a marginal difference of religion or belief status between academic and professional support staff.
  • Sex: the representation of women continues to increase and women now account for 63% of the population while men make up 37%. The gender balance varies across the different employee subgroups and women are overrepresented in the Regional Academic (74%), Support Staff (70%) and Academic-related (67%) employee subgroups. In contrast, men are underrepresented in Professional and Support Staff, accounting for 32% of the Professional and Support staff population. The representation of women at senior level continues to increase for the 5th consecutive year with women accounting for 49.4% of the senior staff population in 2022/23, remaining above our Equality Scheme minimum representation target of 45% women at senior level. Despite making up 59% of academic staff, women are still underrepresented in professorial bands, particularly in PB2, accounting for 47% of the professor grades.
  • Sexual Orientation: data for 2022/23 is currently unavailable.