An analysis of the most recent finances of thirteen top UK universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, has revealed that vice-chancellors have been awarded a pay rise of £9,700 taking their average earnings to over £333,000

The study conducted by The Guardian shows that despite cuts in the higher education budget as well as the fact that Cambridge was £10 million in deficit last year, the current vice-chancellor of the university, Sir Leszek Borysiewicz was paid £258,000, including £35,000 in pensions. This marked a 3.6% increase for the vice-chancellor at a time when the university decided upon a cut in funding for academic programmes across the university.

The vice-chancellors of Oxford, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Leeds, Nottingham, Bristol and Southampton were all also awarded pay rises, sparking calls for a re-assessment of the clampdown on executive pay to include universities as well as banks and “big business”.

Although the average pay rise of 3.9% is below the rate of inflation, Sally Hunt, the general secretary of the University and College Union (the lecturers’ trade union) described the average vice-chancellor’s pay packet as “eye-wateringly high”, especially when seen in conjunction with the fact that since 2009 lecturers themselves have experienced a 7% real- terms pay cut.

Similarly, Usman Ali, the vice president of the National Union of Students, stressed the fact that many students attending the universities would be struggling to fund themselves through their degree, suggesting that many would find the idea of "university fat cats lining their pockets even further utterly sickening".

There are, however, several vice-chancellors who the study reveals to have taken a pay cut, including Liverpool University’s Sir Howard Newby and UCL’s Professor Malcolm Grant, something perhaps more to be expected in a year when around £215m was cut from the teaching budgets of universities in general in the United Kingdom.