I am 3 months into a 15 months postdoc in the UK, so I am still into the initial 6-months probation period. My contract specifies I have to give 3 months notice before leaving (plus some further clauses about not leaving mid-term, but I think this is mostly for teaching positions, while I only do research).
This week I got a really unexpected offer for a 3-year assistant professor position in my home country. It is a fixed-term contract without tenure-track, but for various reasons I still think that accepting it will greatly increase my chances of finding a permanent position in my home country (which is my long-term career goal). Overall I think it is really a unique opportunity and I was really lucky to get the offer.
I explained the situation to current my supervisor, who understands the situation and supports my choice. I have already plans to continue the research even if I leave my current institution and I plan to bring the research project to the end. The main problem is that, due to exceptional nature of the funding, this position must absolutely start in January 2022, so I can give at most 1 month notice and everything needs to happen very quickly. My supervisor emailed HR (while suggesting me to not email them for the moment), but we still have to hear back from them.
I can't deny that I would be devastated to lose this opportunity just due to some bureaucratic impediment. Thus, in the meantime I'd like to know if anybody has had similar experiences, i.e. leaving early without the appropriate notice period, especially with UK institutions. Do you have any advice? Thanks!