
Our twelfth national staff equality data report for higher education institutions (HEIs) aims to assist the sector in better understanding the main equality challenges for staff and students, directing future efforts to overcome them.
Using data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), the publication presents a snapshot of the age, disability, ethnicity and gender of the higher education (HE) workforce in the academic year 2017/18, as well as the interplay of these identities (eg female Black professors or male disabled senior managers). In addition, our report presents high-level findings on institutional collection and return rates of staff gender reassignment, religion and belief and sexual orientation data, as well as how this data intersects with other identity characteristics.


Highlighted disparities
- Proportion of students who disclosed as disabled has more than doubled since 2003/04 (12.9%)
- The attainment gap between white and black students qualifying with a First/2:1 degree was 23.4%
- Two out of three academics on fixed-term contracts were aged 40 and under (66.4%)
- 0.6% of UK professors were black
- Fewer than five heads of institutions were UK BAME (3.1%)
Data tables
To help you access and analyse the data, all of the tables presented in these reports are available to download in Excel format. These also include further detail not included in the report: for example, data disaggregated by five-year age group, impairment type, ethnic group, and subject area.
Infographics
We have produced a set of infographics for both the staff and student report, which visualises some of the key statistics. We encourage you to download the infographics and use them in your work in your institution.

