University of Sheffield staff back strikes over job cuts and redundancies

University of Sheffield staff renewed strike backing in May 2026 as the row over job cuts and compulsory redundancies deepened, with 68% of participating University and College Union members voting to walk out and turnout clearing the 50% threshold needed for legal action.

The new ballot extended a dispute that began when UCU opened its first strike ballot on 27 August 2025, before it closed on 30 September 2025. In that earlier vote, 77% backed strikes and 82.3% supported action short of a strike on a turnout of 52.6%, after management refused to rule out compulsory redundancies across the university.

Staff took 16 days of strike action in November and December 2025 over job cuts in professional services and further planned cuts in academic areas. The university had already cut about 450 jobs during 2024 and was pursuing £23 million in savings, a figure UCU said could amount to more than 400 job losses.

On 22 January 2026, the university told staff their wages could be withheld between 19 January and 6 February if they did not reschedule teaching missed during the strike. UCU condemned the move as continued docking of pay after lawful industrial action.

By May, the university was consulting on restructuring several departments, and Sheffield UCU said members struck on 7 and 8 May, then again from 11 to 14 May, with action short of a strike continuing from 7 May until further notice. The most contested proposals included the loss of six full-time equivalent posts in chemistry, about 20% of staff in that area, and eight full-time equivalent posts in materials science and engineering, also about 20% of employees. Further cuts were proposed in East Asian studies, especially Japanese and Korean studies.

Departments were told to devise recovery plans to prevent academic disadvantage. Sheffield Students’ Union ran 21 teach-out events over four weeks, averaging 12 unique students at each one, while complaints about strike disruption rose from 50 in March to 161 in April. In June, Aberystwyth UCU backed a motion calling for support for a global academic boycott of Sheffield.