#AcademicVenting #Redundancy 🧵 ok so i haven’t written here in a long time - for various reasons. But now 15 months or so since redundancy (from a “permanent” UK university post i had for 13 years) i want to give a quick update: to explain why i am hardly on #Mastodon these days, and also because perhaps it’s useful for others - far too many of us are going through this sadly. Also just feel this stuff is worth documenting as one little story of our time.

#AcademicVenting #Redundancy #Precarity 🧵good; especially learning wise. I know i am incredibly lucky in so many ways. But it’s hard work, many humiliations (lower grade etc) and also: no central identity. Apart from no time that’s been the main reason why i don’t post here much anymore. So: shoutout here to everyone juggling several insecure jobs: it’s hard, and it really changes, hardens you. Less outward looking, sense of agency, hope. Deeply worrying that majority of us live this way.

#AcademicVenting #Redundancy 🧵school, on equity in global health partnerships, and a 0.5 mat cover in Geography at UCL. I am also managing an archaeology project for the Museum of West African Art in Nigeria, on earthen heritage. Altogether earning about same as before at the moment; and each job really enjoyable and interesting. But: it is full on precarity, hard work (too much), and i have no idea what it will all lead to - or rather, realising there will be no “to”. Altogether, it’s been

#AcademicVenting #Redundancy 🧵so for several months i just kept on applying, for academic and other jobs. Every application, of course, a big effort of selling, reinventing yourself; all pretty draining. None of the non-acadmic applications (the most work) got me interviews. Hard to change sector! The permanent academic ones also no luck so far. But I did get two part time fixed term ones. So this is what I am doing now: a 0.5 mat cover as a research fellow at the Brighton and Sussex medical

#AcademicVenting #Redundancy #Consultancy 🧵
But whilst I very much thought about “going into consultancy”, it’s not teasy when you don’t have an existing network; i found the permanent insecurity hard; and also kept on hearing stories of consultants, too, really struggling at the moment (AI part of this). Also by spring, more academic jobs were advertised again, and overall i felt I had to prioritise applications for more “permanent” jobs; i simply had no time to focus on consultancy

#AcademicVenting #Redundancy 🧵so just to state upfront: financially i am doing ok for the time being. I have been very lucky that i got a couple of research consultancy jobs that not only brought in some money but were also really stimulating and enriching: one on race equity and power in global partnerships for the RSPB; one on marine decision-making in Sussex for the MMO. I learned a huge anount, talked to many very impressive people, and really enjoyed both.

#AcademicVenting #Redundancy 🧵 ok so i haven’t written here in a long time - for various reasons. But now 15 months or so since redundancy (from a “permanent” UK university post i had for 13 years) i want to give a quick update: to explain why i am hardly on #Mastodon these days, and also because perhaps it’s useful for others - far too many of us are going through this sadly. Also just feel this stuff is worth documenting as one little story of our time.

This article is hard to stomach for all those of us currently looking for work, and not finding anything suitable, or anything at all. But it’s good that at least rising #unemployment is recognised now.

My own #redundancy last year and subsequent struggles have made me so alert to all these wider structural changes; I am really scared that this may be just the beginning. Terrible combination of AI and money going only to the rich

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/feb/10/britons-hunting-for-a-job-uk-jobseekers-pay?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other