Marking boycott set to stop University of Nottingham students graduating

The boycott comes after an overwhelming 87% of UCU members voted yes to the action on a turnout of 64%. It would mean staff boycott all marking and assessment duties for the rest of this academic year, if management refuses to resolve the dispute, this will effectively prevent students from graduating.

Staff will also strike on Friday 22 May and be on picket lines from 8am across the campus.

The dispute is over concerns the university is set to announce a swathe of cuts next week as part of phase two of its restructuring programme, including plans, reported in the media, to axe more than 600 jobs.

Management has already suspended all recruitment for some courses, including language and music, and announced it will increase the number of students per staff member during teaching and slash research time.

Phase one of the cuts programme resulted in 350 staff being axed over the past year, but compulsory redundancies were avoided after an agreement with UCU that no worker would be forced out until at least Saturday 31 October 2026. This agreement also committed the university to meaningfully engage with UCU to avoid course suspensions in time for the 2026 recruitment cycle. A commitment the union believes management has now broken.

Alongside the cuts to staff, the university is also trying to offload an £80m campus it only purchased five years ago, which UCU has previously criticised as a vanity project and the cause of the current financial troubles.

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: 'The University of Nottingham is on notice that it needs to rule out compulsory redundancies and work with staff to protect jobs and student provision. If it refuses to do so, our members will boycott all marking, effectively blocking the university from handing out graduation certificates.

'No member of staff wants to take this step, but management is ruining this university, and it must be stopped.

'The financial issues facing the institution are the result of the senior leadership team's mismanagement, and staff and students must not be made to pay the price for its failings.'