Edinburgh UCU schedules 25 strike days over cuts and job fears

• UCU has called 25 strike days from Monday 28 September to Friday 30 October, during teaching weeks two to six of Semester 1.¹²
• The union links the dispute to the university’s planned £140 million savings programme and estimates 1,800 potential job losses.¹
• Staff taking part would stop teaching, answering emails, attending meetings and marking; the Students’ Association says not all staff will strike.³
• Students may not know whether an individual class is going ahead until the day itself, the association warns.³

The University of Edinburgh’s human resources page confirms the dates, describing the dispute as related to planned organisational change. The action is scheduled across the opening weeks of teaching, rather than as five uninterrupted weeks in which every member of staff would be on strike.²¹

UCU says it wants management to rule out compulsory redundancies, address job losses it describes as hidden, and negotiate over cuts and workloads. Its 1,800 figure is an estimate of potential losses, not a confirmed number of redundancies.¹

Principal Sir Peter Mathieson told The Independent the university was disappointed by the action and would try to reduce its effect on students. He also said management remained committed to engagement with unions.⁴ The Students’ Association says staff who strike will not carry out their usual work, while those who do not strike may continue classes and services. That leaves the effect on individual students dependent on which staff take part.³

Footnotes

1. University and College Union, “Five-week strike at Edinburgh University at start of new academic term”. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

2. University of Edinburgh, “Industrial Action 2026”. ↩ ↩²

3. Edinburgh University Students’ Association, “Industrial Action”. ↩ ↩² ↩³

4. The Independent, “Thousands of staff at top UK university to begin five-week strike action”. ↩