Sheffield Universities plan to strike – UCU announce four week plan just months after previous strikes
28 October 2025
People at a protest standing and holding placards

Picket lines at the University of Sheffield, where more protests regarding job cuts and staff protection will occur

The University and College Union have submitted more strike notices, outlining their intent to strike for four weeks, commencing the 17th November.

The last strikes within the University of Sheffield happened at the beginning of May, and ended with an offer from the University on the 9th, that stated that no more staff would be made redundant following their plans.

However, with “job cuts and threat to staff workload,” 77% of UCU members have once again voted for industrial action.

With strike action approaching, we spoke to those on the picket lines during May’s strikes at the University of Sheffield, and most were adamant that the structure had to change.

“There’s quite a lot of jobs being lost and they’re not guaranteeing to protect them” said Laura Hull, a Picket supervisor.

“They’re ringfencing you to a role, which is not the role that you’ve been doing. Other people have just been put into a pool, where they’re just not being matched to a role, and they’re at risk of redundancy.”

Picket lines ran all the way from the Student Union to Weston Park

Dr Camellia Priede, a Foundation Programme Tutor at the University, believed that the management didn’t work with the staff in tackling the issues.

“There’s not really been that conversation around restructuring, and at the moment, it feels like there’s going to be some really short sighted decisions made that are going to have knock on effects,” she said.

It seems to be more of the same problems for the union this time around. In a statement in September from the SUCU Committee, the Sheffield branch within the UCU, cited a “worsening of our workloads and working conditions.”

The new strike dates for the University of Sheffield are set as follows:

Week 1: 17, 18, 19, and 21 November 2025

Week 2: 24, 25, 26, and 27 November 2025

Week 3: 1, 2, 4, and 5 December 2025

Week 4: 9, 10, 11, and 12 December 2025

The union have stated that although negotiations haven’t led to a resolution, talks are productive, with the staff structure and redundancies once again at the forefront of conversations.

The University of Sheffield are yet to release a statement regarding the notice.