UCU is recognised by higher and further education employers at a national level, and by many individual institutions locally throughout the UK, for the purposes of negotiating salaries, pay structures and conditions of employment.

Further education

In England UCU negotiates with the Association of Colleges, an employers' organisation representing the vast majority of colleges, alongside other recognised trade unions in the National Joint Forum (NJF) to produce recommendations on pay and other employment issues for individual colleges to adopt.

Wales, although adopting many of the conditions of employment recommendations reached through the NJF, has an additional negotiating forum, Fforwm, which negotiates on pay and additional conditions of employment issues.

Northern Ireland has in place completely separate structures for bargaining on FE pay and conditions.

UCU does not organise within FE in Scotland, where the recognised union is the Educational Institute of Scotland.

Higher education

In higher education UCU represents members from across the UK in negotiations on both pre-92 and post-92 pay - and around some national conditions of employment - through an academic sub-committee of the Joint National Committee for Higher Education Staff (JNCHES), alongside smaller Scottish academic union EIS. The employers' organisation UCEA represents the vast majority of HE institutions on JNCHES.

UCU local associations and branches negotiate with individual employers on the implementation of nationally agreed pay structures and nationally agreed conditions of employment, and all other employment issues.