22 September 2026 
Emma Walton-Pond, Communications Officer
The National 10 Development Days Festival for Research Staff is a timely reminder of an important commitment across HE: research staff should have time, support and encouragement to invest in their development.
But for university HR teams, the most important question may not be whether development time exists on paper.
It is this: Do research staff feel able, supported and encouraged to actually use it?
Training and development is not simply an L&D issue. It is a core part of the employee experience.
It shapes how people feel about their role, their future, their manager, their institution and the value placed on their contribution.
When development works well, employees are more likely to feel confident, capable and connected to the direction of the organisation. They can see how their skills are growing, where their career might go next and how their work contributes to something bigger.
Development is closely linked to confidence, capability, career progression and the wider employee experience. As explored in this piece on how universities are improving training and development, when employees feel they can access relevant training and see a future for themselves, they are more likely to feel valued, supported and able to grow.
In a university context, this matters deeply. Research staff are often working in complex, high-pressure environments, balancing project demands, funding uncertainty, teaching or supervisory responsibilities and career progression in a competitive sector.
Development time should help create space for growth, reflection and future planning. But it can only do that if people feel they have genuine permission to use it.
People Insight’s latest official HE benchmark data shows that 62% of HE employees say they can get the training and development they need to do their job, compared with 68% across all sectors.
The wider career development picture is even more challenging. Only 45% of HE employees say their career development aspirations are being met, compared with 57% across all sectors.
The data also points to variation between staff groups. 55% of academic staff say they can get the training and development they need, compared with 60% of professional services staff.
While this is not a direct comparison with research staff, it underlines an important point for HR teams: development is not experienced evenly across a university. Different groups have different pressures, pathways, manager relationships and support needs.
That gap between provision and experience should concern university leaders. It suggests that while training may be available, employees do not always experience development as clear, accessible or connected to their longer-term aspirations.
For research staff, this can be particularly acute.
An entitlement to development days is important, but it does not automatically remove the practical and cultural barriers that can stop people using them.
Workload pressure, project deadlines, short-term contracts, unclear pathways, local norms and manager expectations can all make development difficult to prioritise.
In some teams, taking time for development may be seen as a normal and valued part of working life. In others, it may feel like something to squeeze around the edges of an already full workload.
Some researchers may worry about stepping away from delivery. Others may not know what opportunities are available, how to choose the right development activity or whether their principal investigator or line manager will genuinely support them.
This is where HR has such an important role to play, not just in promoting development opportunities, but in helping institutions build a culture where development is protected, expected and acted on.
Universities should avoid assuming that research staff, academic staff and professional services staff experience development in the same way. Their working patterns, career structures and day-to-day pressures can look very different.
The headline question is whether research staff feel able, supported and encouraged to use their development time.
But there are other questions worth asking, too.
● Are research staff aware of their development entitlement?
● Do they know how to access it?
● Do they feel their manager encourages them to use it?
● Is workload getting in the way?
● Are some departments, career stages or contract types finding it harder than others?
● Do people believe development will help them progress?
The answers to these questions can help HR teams move beyond provision and into lived experience.
There are already good examples across the sector of universities using employee listening to understand development, management and culture more clearly.
At the University of Oxford, employee listening has supported action at significant scale. Its latest Inspire HE results showed a 74% engagement score, 63% participation and engagement six points above the sector norm. Importantly for this discussion, career development scores for research staff increased by nine percentage points, showing that targeted listening and action can make a measurable difference to how development is experienced.
St Mary’s University offers another useful example. Employee survey insight showed that positive line manager scores were masking less consistent experiences around feedback, performance management, development and career support. The university used 360 feedback to help managers understand how their behaviours were experienced and to support more focused development conversations, showing that development culture is often shaped in day-to-day interactions between employees and managers, not only through central policy.
University of the Arts London also shows the value of looking beneath headline scores. Its staff survey deep-dives explored themes including career development, learning and development, line management, workload and the experiences of different employee groups.
This kind of targeted insight helps institutions understand where support is working, where barriers remain and where action needs to be more specific.
For HR teams looking to strengthen research staff development, there are several practical steps worth prioritising:
1. First, development time needs to be visible in workload planning. If development is presented as important but treated as extra, it will always lose out to urgent delivery pressures.
2. Second, principal investigators and line managers need to be equipped and expected to have meaningful development conversations. They should be helping research staff discuss aspirations, identify useful opportunities and protect time for growth.
3. Third, career conversations should happen regularly, not only at annual review points. Development is more likely to become part of the culture when it is part of normal management practice.
4. Fourth, institutions should listen by staff group, career stage and local context. Research staff, academic staff, professional services teams, technicians and managers may all experience development differently. A single headline score will not show where the real barriers sit.
5. Finally, universities need to close the listening loop. If staff say workload, manager support or lack of clarity is preventing development, institutions need to show what they are doing in response.
The 10 development days commitment gives universities a really valuable framework. But the real measure of success is whether research staff experience development as a normal, supported and worthwhile part of working life.
For HR teams, the opportunity is to ask the better question: not simply whether development time is available, but whether people feel able to use it — because development time only works when it is experienced as permission; not pressure.
Jane Tidswell, HE Director
Jane.tidswell@peopleinsight.co.uk
