Population by gender - About - University of St Andrews

Using the Labour Force Survey, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that of those employed in the UK in 2019, 53% were men and 47% were women.

The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) reported that in academic year 2018-2019, 45.4% of staff working in UK higher education were men and 54.6% were women. Figures are broadly similar in Scotland, where 45% of staff were men and 55% were women. The gender distribution changes when looking at ‘academic staff only’, in academic year 2018-2019, 53.7% of academic staff were men, whilst 46.2% were women. For a gendered breakdown of teaching and research contracts, see below.

Findings

St Andrews has a comparatively even gender distribution amongst staff, which for the past four years has marginally favoured women.

Amongst academic staff at St Andrews, we see a less even gender distribution (61.3% men, 38.7% women), with women being comparatively underrepresented; this is in line with trends for both UK (54.7% men, 46.2% women) and Scottish (54.6% men, 45.4% women) higher education. In relation to professional service staff, where there are 39.8% men and 60.2% women, men are comparatively underrepresented.

At St Andrews, women (55.9%) tend to be overrepresented in ‘teaching only’ contracts as compared to men (44.1%). Whereas men tend to be overrepresented in ‘research only’ (59.9% men, 40.1% women) and ‘teaching and research’ contracts (66.5% men, 33.5% women). This is comparable to UK higher education statistical trends.

Staff by gender

A bar graph depicting the percentage of men and women at St Andrews and within Scottish and UK HE.

Men represented 49.3% of St Andrews’ staff population, 45% of Scottish HE and 45.4% of UK HE.
Women represented 50.7% of St Andrews’ staff population, 54.9% of Scottish HE and 54.6% of UK HE.
The University of St Andrews therefore has a higher percentage of men than the Scottish and UK HE average and a lower percentage of women than the Scottish and UK HE average.
The bar graph shows that unlike Scottish and UK HE, St Andrews has a relatively even gender split, 49.3% men and 50.7% women.

Staff population by activity and gender

A bar graph depicting the percentage of men and women at St Andrews and within Scottish and UK HE, for academic and Professional service staff.

Academic staff

Men comprise 61.3% of academics at St Andrews, 54.6% of academics within Scotland and 53.7% of academics within UK HE.
Women comprise 38.7% of academic staff at St Andrews, 45.4% of Scottish academics and 46.2% of UK HE academics.
There is an unequal gender split which favours men, within St Andrews, Scotland and UK HE.
This unequal split is greatest at St Andrews, where men comprise 61.3% of academic staff and women comprise 38.7%, which is a 22.6 percentage point disparity.

Professional service staff

Men represent 39.8% of St Andrews professional service population, 36.4% of the Scottish HE Professional Service population and 37.2% of the UK HE professional service population.
Women represent 60.2% of professional service staff at St Andrews, within Scotland women represent 63.6% and UK wide, women represent 62.7% of UK HE professional service staff.
There is an unequal gender split which favours women, within St Andrews, Scottish and UK HE.

Academic staff by research/teaching contract type and gender

A bar graph depicting the percentage of men and women within each of the following contract types ‘teaching only’ and ‘research only’, in St Andrews, Scotland and the UK.

A bar graph depicting the percentage of men and women within each of the following contract types ‘teaching and research’ and ‘neither teaching nor research’, in St Andrews, Scotland and the UK.

Teaching contracts

At St Andrews men represented 44.1% and women represented 55.9%.
In Scotland men represented 48.3% of teaching contracts and women represented 51.7%.
In UK HE, men represented 47.6%, whilst women represented 52.4%.
St Andrews has a lower percentage of men in teaching only contracts than the Scottish and UK benchmark and a higher percentage of women in teaching only contracts than the Scottish and UK HE averages.

Research only contracts

At St Andrews, men represented 59.9%, women represented 40.1%.
Within Scotland, 52.7% were held by men and 47.3 were held by women.
In UK HE overall, men represented 53% of all research contracts and women represented 47%.
In research only contracts, St Andrews has an unequal gender distribution, 59.9% men and 40.1% women, which is a 19.8 percentage point difference, whereas within Scotland and UK HE, there is an almost equal gender distribution amongst research only contracts.

Teaching and research contracts

At St Andrews men comprise 66.5 percent and women comprise 33.5%.
Within Scottish HE men comprised 60.5% and women represented 39.4%.
In UK HE overall, men represented 58.2% of all teaching and research contracts and women represented 41.7%.
Of teaching and research contracts there is an unequal gender distribution at St Andrews and within Scottish and UK HE which favours men, however, at 33 percentage points, the difference between the percentage of men and women on teaching and research contracts is greater in St Andrews than in Scotland and the UK.

Neither teaching nor research contracts

St Andrews does not have staff on this contract type.
In Scotland 57.7% were men and 42.3% were women.
Within UK HE, 55.5% were men and 44.5% are women.
There are more men in ‘neither teaching nor research’ contracts in Scotland and the UK.

Staff equality, diversity and inclusion report 2019 Population by gender