Job Losses at Universities, Huge Profits at Elsevier
The wave of job losses at UK universities is spreading. I recently mentioned Nottingham University and just this week saw an announcement from Sussex University that 200 jobs are on the line (this in addition to 528 already lost in the past year). Higher education in the UK is shrinking.
Meanwhile, one of the leading exponents of the Academic Publishing Racket, Elsevier, announced its profits for 2025:
(Taken from here.) That profit margin is higher than all the Big Tech companies. Higher education may be shrinking but Elsevier’s profits are not.
Despite the dire financial straits of universities in the UK and elsewhere, they continue to surrender money to this parasitic industry which is draining institutions of precious resources. I’m not saying that academic journal costs are the sole reason for the current meltdown but it does say something about the lack of imagination of University leaders that they continue wasting money on the “service” provided by commercial publishers like Elsevier.
Many of us have been boycotting Elsevier as individuals for many years, but it clearly isn’t working. Perhaps now University leaders will finally realise that the status quo is unsustainable and cut their institutional ties with the publishing industry for good. It won’t solve all their financial problems, but it’s the right thing to do.
In the Dark 
May 31, 2026 at 6:05 pm
Not sure it’s correct to say UK HE is shrinking – rather, it’s concentrating. The number of undergraduates I lectured to this year is about 40% larger than in the same courses just 3 years ago. This is a result of the removal of the cap that used to exist on recruitment: now allegedly prestigious universities like Edinburgh can hoover up all the students they can lay their hands on. And it’s roughly a zero-sum game, so our gain comes at the expense of some of the places that are struggling. As we know, in many cases the main cause of the struggles is poor management, but having your student fee income sucked away certainly doesn’t help.
June 1, 2026 at 11:08 am
Even if numbers are increasing, I doubt you will get more staff. Generally the student-staff ratio is going up and the total number of staff is declining. I don’t know the demographic trend in the UK so can’t say whether the number of UK students is going up or down, and the number of international students is declining, but staff numbers are falling.
June 1, 2026 at 10:59 am
I thought it was more to do with the large reduction in international student numbers (who pay large fees)?
June 2, 2026 at 8:48 am
in some places, it’s a 4-fold blow: poor management (excessive vanity capital spend); declining foreign students; declining domestic students; less overhead income from endangered species like STFC grants. Coping with all of these simultaneously is an existential threat.
June 2, 2026 at 10:56 am
Yes, while the bedrock for a department is provided by student numbers, the margin on research grants is important for many to make ends meet. The cuts in STFC grants could be the last straw in some cases.