A New Deal for FE

UCU members are at the heart of the New Deal for FE campaign and we are asking every FE member to get involved. This campaign is calling for: 

• a 10%/£3000 pay rise
• parity with schoolteacher pay within 3 years
• a minimum starting salary of £30,000 
• reform of the pay spine
• close equality pay gaps
• national agreements on workload
• a return to national bargaining
• putting FE at the heart of a new government's plans.

Our campaigning

• About our New Deal for FE campaign
• Ask your MP to help ensure extra funding for England's colleges is spent on staff
• Parliamentary lobby: making the case for a New Deal
• Your questions to the Minister of State for Skills
• FE England joint national pay claim 2025/26
• National bargaining in FE: petition for a New Deal submitted
• Protect Education NOW national rally, May 2025
• Resources and background information

England FE industrial action ballot, October-November 2025

Following a disappointing and non-binding pay recommendation of 4% for FE colleges in England from their representative body, the Association of Colleges (AoC), alongside no meaningful response to the non-pay elements of the New Deal for FE campaign, UCU has now  has moved into dispute with the employers, and a ballot for strike action will take place in autumn 2025. This came after members responded decisively in a consultation asking whether they were prepared to take strike action.

UCU will be conducting an industrial action ballot, involving around 70 FE England college employers (corresponding to over 100 FE England UCU branches). The ballot will be conducted by the independent election scrutineer Civica Election Services as a postal vote as required by law; please note that there is no online option available for voting for industrial action in the UK. The timeframe is the following:

• Monday 13 October 2025: ballot opens
• Monday 20 October 2025 (09:00): replacement ballot request form opens
• Tuesday 11 November 2025: last day for new members to join UCU and still be automatically included in the industrial action ballot
• Wednesday 12 November 2025 (23:59): replacement ballot request form closes
• Thursday 13 November 2025: last 'safe' date to post the ballot
• Monday 17 November 2025 (17:00): ballot closes

In the United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland), a successful industrial action ballot (i.e. a majority 'YES' vote and a turnout of 50% or above) provides a legal mandate for industrial action for a period of six months, starting from the date when the ballot closes. In this case, the legal mandate provided by a successful ballot will expire on Sunday 17 May 2026. 

About our New Deal for FE campaign

UCU is at a critical point in FE. The union at employer level continues to grow in organisational capacity, bargaining strength and confidence and is winning for members on pay and other terms and conditions. However, the rate of growth and depth of our capacity and density is unevenly distributed.

The campaign, built on the union's experiences in recent years, is about laying the foundations for a New Deal for FE. It covers pay, workloads, and national bargaining. It represents a fundamental challenge to the status quo at college and sector level. It resonates with members, has traction with the core activist group but is actively resisted by the Association of Colleges (AoC) and a wide range of college leaders as it is a direct threat to their power and control.

• National bargaining (in England) does not function. It has failed to meet the aspirations and demands of members and needs fundamental change. The national FE bargaining framework and agreement (NJF) is specifically set up to result in recommendations not binding collective agreements
• Since FE incorporation in the early 1990s FE colleges and college groups have been autonomous legal entities covered by legislation and regulation with their own governance arrangements. It is at this level, not the national level, where the power lays
• The UK government, via the DfE has an arm's length relationship with the sector. The various funding streams have a range of conditionalities attached to them, often linked to government policy priorities, such as skills and employment initiatives
• The DfE has no role in setting terms and conditions or pay in FE. The DfE are not part of the NJF. The DfE position and by extension the position of the UK government is that pay and related matters are legally devolved to each FE corporation
• FE funding is complex and distributed via mechanisms covering 16-19, Adult and Community Education, ESOL, apprenticeships, skills, BTEC and T-Level. It is also a source of control for the UK government and other agencies with whom UCU does not negotiate
• Any fundamental change to the status quo within the sector and a potential new deal for FE in line with UCU aspirations must recognise and be able to strategically react to the existing structural, legal, and power realities.

The central premise of a New Deal for FE is that UCU is not yet ready to achieve fundamental change at sector level and any precipitate move will most probably take the union and our strategic demands backwards rather than forward.

We should be actively focusing on continuing to build branch capacity and membership density and continue to build confidence by winning for members at branch level. The campaign needs to be built through all the union's structures, so that the decisions of the FE sector conference and the FEC are anchored in what the union does not have a reasonable prospect of securing at this time. Members must be regularly engaged and consulted, as must the branch reps.

The union's communications, campaigning and political lobbying work should be clear and consistent in articulating and explaining what the New Deal for FE is and use all means at our disposal to champion and repeat the core demands.

We should be bold and ambitious and shift resources to build the biggest unified campaign rather than move to an aggregate ballot that does not have the building blocks in place at this time.

Missed opportunities

The Spring Statement in March 2025 was another missed opportunity for the UK government to address the years of neglect and under-investment in further education (FE) and reverse the funding cuts to adult and community education (ACE).

To build a decade of renewal and deliver the skills needed to drive growth requires strategic investment and a workforce strategy, not a repeat of the failures of austerity: we need a New Deal for FE. We demand pay parity with schoolteachers, national workload agreements and binding national bargaining. 

Our campaigning

Ask your MP to help ensure extra funding for England's colleges is spent on staff

FE has been neglected for many years and staff have suffered as a result with some of the worst pay cuts in the education sector and spiraling workloads leading to a recruitment and retention crisis. We urgently need the £300m extra FE funding announced in the Budget to be used by colleges to pay their staff fairly.

We have drafted a pro forma letter for UCU members to send to their England MP to support a New Deal for FE and call on the government to ensure the extra funding is spent on staff.

Parliamentary lobby: making the case for a New Deal

Congratulations to everyone that joined our lobby of Parliament on 23 October 2024. Further, prison and adult education members came from across England to press MPs to support our campaigns. Politicians were matched with constituents in a packed committee room where they also heard briefings from the general secretary and UCU officers. This was a fantastic event aimed at boosting political awareness of the issues facing FE, adult and prison education staff ahead of the 2024 autumn budget.

UCU submission to the School Teachers' Pay Review Body (STRB)

In September 2024, UCU was invited by the secretary of state for education to make a submission to the School Teachers' (Pay) Review Body (STRB) 2025/26. This was followed up in October with direction from the secretariat of the STRB along the lines of 'We are specifically interested in your views and evidence in relation to the impact of our pay recommendations on the further education teaching workforce in England'.

Your questions to the Minister of State for Skills

In January 2025 UCU general secretary Jo Grady met with the Minister of State for Skills, Baroness Smith of Malvern. This was an opportunity to put our concerns about the state of post-16 education, and what the Labour government should urgently do about the sector, directly to the minister. Find out what she said below.

National bargaining in FE: petition for a New Deal submitted

Staff in FE have suffered some of the worst real terms pay cuts in the education sector. Part of the reason for this is the current broken model of pay negotiations where the outcomes of national talks are not binding and colleges are not required to implement recommended pay rises. We need a fully funded settlement that all colleges are required to deliver for FE teachers.

In late 2024, we launched the New Deal for FE petition. Almost 6,000 supporters signed the petition calling for a New Deal for FE with pay parity with schoolteachers, national bargaining and action on workloads. On 7 March 2025 a UCU delegation consisting of general secretary Jo Grady, president Maxine Looby and head of further education Paul Bridge, went to the Department of Education to present it. The UCU submission to the cross-party inquiry into the further education (FE) sector was also complete.

Thank you to all UCU members have done to encourage everyone to sign the petition. You can continue to support the New Deal for FE campaign by:

• presenting the petition to your college principal or senior management team
• taking photos of staff and supporters holding up our 'I support a New Deal for FE' posters and giant card petition props like our members at Hopwood Hall College and MidKent College
• holding a lunchtime meeting about the New Deal for FE campaign
• sharing campaign leaflets in your workplace.

Click here for the March 2025 update on New Deal for FE from UCU general secretary Jo Grady.

FE England joint national pay claim 2025/26

In April 2025 UCU and the other further education trade unions (GMB, NEU, Unite and Unison) submitted the joint FE trade unions' pay claim (2025/26) to the Association of Colleges (AoC).

You can click here to read the full claim here.

The claim is built on the core demands in the New Deal for FE campaign:

• FE pay parity with schoolteachers' pay
• national workload agreements
• a new binding national bargaining framework.

Protect Education NOW national rally, May 2025

On Saturday 10 May 2025, UCU called a rally in central London for UCU members and supporters to come together. Higher education, further education, prison education, adult and community education - united.

Members and branches from across the country marched to the Houses of Parliament. Guest speakers included John McDonnell MP, Mariela Kohon (TUC), Amira Campbell (NUS) and Andrea Bradley (EIS); there were also plenty of members from our sister education unions, students, supporters and activists.

Thank you to everyone who came to the rally. You can click here for more photos and watch coverage on BBC News here.

Resources and background information

A New Deal for FE - poster [1mb]

A New Deal for FE - leaflet [219kb]

Further education unions' pay claim 2025/26