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I am applying for a job in a public university in the United Kingdom. The job advertisement is for a Lecturer position. I already received an interview appointment.

However, I am considering negotiating for a Senior Lecturer position. as I am currently being employed by a university in another country on the highest end of the Lecturer grade and the overall annual salary of academics in this country is higher in comparison with how academics are paid in the United Kingdom.

I am not sure how to go about this. Should I mention this during an interview? Or should I mention this once I receive an offer? Or is there no way to negotiate at all? I am planning to leave my current employment merely because the job I am applying for seems to suit me better.

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    I can't answer, not knowing the UK rules, but in some places you can trade off starting salary and rank/titles.
    – Buffy
    Commented Jul 29, 2021 at 17:57
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    Not an answer, as I only have anecdata, but I think generally it's difficult to make an appointment outside the parameters in the advert (after all, if they'd actually advertised a 'Senior Lecturer' position, maybe different people would've applied). In any case, you can always ask. More fruitful might be to explore the possibility of guaranteed/accelerated promotion once in post. Personally I would wait until they offer you the job before bringing it up - I don't see any benefit from doing so earlier.
    – avid
    Commented Jul 29, 2021 at 19:41

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It is unlikely that you can negotiate for a senior position, however negotiating for grade is different to negotiating for salary. It is possible to be appointed as a lecturer at salary points higher than the advertised ones and these can be used in the negotiations, particularly when hiring someone from overseas or from industry where salary levels are not consistent with UK ones.

A lecturer position is in a "Band" (actually band 8) and those bands have salary points and there is overlap with the upper "points" of the lecturer with the lower "points" of the senior (a band 9).

Being senior is not just about money, it is also about duties and responsibilities and they have a vacancy for the duties and responsibilities for a lecturer, and that is why it has been advertised as such.

Are your negotiating for different duties or more money? You need to be clear on that.

A useful references are:

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    Its worth noting that while grade points are national, "bands" are unique to each university. So while lecturer's are indeed grade 8 at my university as well, some will call the Lecturer band grade 7.
    – Ian Sudbery
    Commented Aug 1, 2021 at 20:47
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I can't do much harm to try to negotiate - deciding to appoint someone to a lectureship is a difficult decision,and if they have picked you, it is unlikely they will change their mind if you try to negotiate better conditions.

Particularly the Lecturer/Senior Lecturer split is general competency based, rather that need based - that is people are promoted to senior lecturer when they meet a certain set of performance criteria, rather than when they need someone to do an SL job.

So, at my institution, to be promoted you must demonstrate you are doing the job of a Senior Lecturer, and that is defined by meeting 6 of the following 10 criteria:

Research:

  1. Outputs: At least 1 output regarded as "internationally leading" (think a paper top journal in your field, or a generalest glam-journal) in every 2 year rolling period.
  2. Income: Average income over a multi year period that at least matches that of the average senior lectuer in a Russel Group university for your field.
  3. Impact: Deliver research that forms a viable Research Excellence Impact case study, or potential future impact case study - patents, change government policy make an ecconomic or social difference.

Teaching:

  1. High Quality Teaching Practice: Evidence that your teaching is good- outcome data, teaching evaluations etc.
  2. Curriculum enhancement: Review and redesign an existing complete program of study, or design a new one (or a significant number of indevidual modules).
  3. Improving teaching practice: Evidence of pedagogical scholarship, research and publication.

Leadership:

  1. Academic Citizenship: SL level admin duties like admisions tutor, director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, chair of the academic misconduct committee, etc
  2. High Quality Management: Not just undertaking admin for the department, but that you are managing others to achieve the aims of the department, faculty and univeristy.
  3. Change and Innovation: Make admin stucutures or functions better.

Professional Standing and wider engagement: Basically show that your field (or the public) knows who you are - international conference invites, journal editorships, external examining, etc.

I supsect that if you can show that you meet 6 of these (and are prepared to continue with such duties), or whatever the equivalent criteria are at the univerity that is hiring you have, then you could argue that you should go in at SL level. The worst that can happen is they can say no.

Interestingly we pretty much never advertise for lecture level only, we generally advertise Lecturer or Senior Lecturer.

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