Thanks to our partners of 2024
We are immensely grateful to our premium partners for the UHR Conference 2024, NTT DATA Business Solutions and Shakespeare Martineau for their ongoing support for UHR, and for HR teams across the Higher Education sector generally. We look forward to virtually seeing them and our other sponsors at #UHR24.
We are independent specialists in workplace investigation, dispute resolution and investigative review with considerable knowledge and experience of Higher Education. Founded in 2010, we have over the past decade undertaken successful assignments in over 50 HEIs. Our team of experienced investigators, reviewers and dispute resolvers, with backgrounds in senior management, human resources, legal, finance and audit, are able quickly to understand client needs and deal confidently with the full range of complex and difficult employment relations issues. We pride ourselves on prompt and high-quality service, a systematic project approach to every assignment and our ability to be “thoughtful practitioners”.
Contact - Clive Bane, clive@b3sixty.co.uk, 07973878209
Bevan Brittan is a UK-Top 100 national law firm. Our team of specialist higher education lawyers work with universities and higher education Institutions, including members of the internationally renowned Russell Group as well as dynamic new universities and colleges. Many of our team have joined from in-house positions, which enables us to provide well informed, pragmatic legal solutions, whilst delivering excellent value for money.
Contact our award-winning teams for advice on all employment, HR, pensions, immigration, education law including (student disciplinary and academic misconduct processes), complaints and health and safety issues.
Contact - ashley.norman@bevanbrittan.com
Our team of dedicated and trusted higher education lawyers understand the globally competitive and challenging environment in which you operate and know you need pragmatic and practical solutions for your institution.
As an extension of your in-house legal and HR teams we will help you to make informed decisions and identify and manage risk. Our employment and HR services include (but are not limited to) recruitment, contractual and settlement agreements, immigration issues, pensions, employment training solutions and advocacy services. We can also provide you with practical resolutions to grievance, disciplinary, ill-health and performance-related matters.
In the ever-changing world of higher education, it’s more important than ever that you have access to specialist higher education legal advice that you can rely on.
Our team will work with you to help you make and take opportunities in the rapidly changing legal, regulatory and commercial landscape you operate in, both domestically and internationally. We’ll do this by providing genuine insight into current higher education law and a fresh perspective on the issues you face, as well as delivering client-focused solutions rather than technical answers to defined legal questions. We’re always looking to influence, innovate and challenge the status quo. We add value wherever we can.
Why Browne Jacobson?
Our clients choose us because of our sector expertise and intrinsic knowledge of higher education law, but they stay with us because of our exceptional service.
With bases in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Exeter, Cardiff, Dublin and our founding city of Nottingham, and links across the globe, Browne Jacobson is a national law firm with international reach. Our 500+ Lexcel and ISO accredited lawyers – including 140+ partners across six practices – are bound together by our shared values. We’re all dedicated to decency, simplicity and creative solutions – and we’re excited about what we can achieve together.
We’re known for giving practical advice, having strong market knowledge and being proactive and prepared to give ‘If I were you’ advice, please do contact us to discuss how we can help you.
Contact - Bettina.Rigg@brownejacobson.com
We’re the UK’s leader in shaping and defining reward in education.
As a not-for profit consortium of more than 125 universities and colleges, our HR expertise has helped to create fair, transparent and trusted pay structures for more than half a million people across 150,000 roles over the past 25 years.
ECC members have exclusive access to the very best tools available to help evaluate roles, determine pay and reward, and underpin reward strategy. Our Consultant team supports our members and clients with a wide range of initiatives:
Contact - contactus@ecc.ac.uk
Taking care of your financial future
Evelyn Partners financial planners and investment experts help people to achieve their financial goals and ambitions.
It looks after £52 billion* on behalf of its clients, who include solicitors, senior professionals, company executives and business owners along with families, charities and other private individuals.
Evelyn Partners experts understand that as an education professional, your personal finances are likely to be complicated and you may have very little time to dedicate to them. You face unique challenges when it comes to your pension and retirement planning, inheritance tax and estate planning and tax planning.
As an education professional, you’ll know the importance of talking to an expert. Just as you have the specialist academic knowledge to help your students, Evelyn Partners has the specialist financial planning and investment knowledge and expertise to help you.
Speak to Evelyn Partners
Evelyn Partners believes in talking things through. Together.
Which is why Evelyn Partners is offering a free initial consultation. Just the chance to talk to an expert.
Contact one of our UK Universities team to arrange a phone or video appointment :
David Vallance, Director, Chartered Financial Planner
david.vallance@evelyn.com 07818 512 369
David A Smith, Partner, Chartered Financial Planner
david.a.smith@evelyn.com 07769 880 368
Rachel Debono, Associate Director, Chartered Financial Planner
rachel.debono@evelyn.com 07825 944065
How Evelyn Partners can help you
Evelyn Partners does not have a ‘one size fits all’ approach – its service is personal to you. Some people require a comprehensive financial plan with ongoing management of their investments and regular meetings. Others need a one-off recommendation on a single topic. It can help with both and everything in between.
As you think about your personal wealth, you're likely to have a number of questions. Evelyn Partners advisers understand these queries and what considerations you need to make, such as:
The value of an investment may go down as well as up, and you may get back less than you originally invested.
Issued by Evelyn Partners Financial Planning Ltd. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Financial services are also provided by other companies in the Evelyn Partners Group, further details of which are available here.
*Source: Evelyn Partners, as at 30 September 2022
Eversheds Sutherland LLP is an international law firm with 74 offices in 35 countries. Our Education Sector Group is ranked in band 1 in Legal 500 and Chambers Directories for both our education and our employment law expertise. We have a dedicated team of experienced education lawyers with a thorough understanding of the challenges faced by HE institutions locally, nationally and internationally.
We provide legal advice and support to HE institutions across the full range of their HR-related activities. This includes complex high value tribunal proceedings, organisational change, industrial relations, investigations, staff discipline and grievances, whistleblowing challenges, international staffing and collaborations, immigration issues, equality and diversity, fixed-term/hourly paid staff, health and safety, reputation management and HR-related governance and regulatory matters.
We are delighted to be supporting UHR with this year’s annual conference.
Contact - Nicola Bennison, NicolaBennison@eversheds-sutherland.com
Farrer & Co is synonymous with the highest quality legal advice and service. From our offices in London we work with trusted professionals around the world to deliver a seamless international service.
We work alongside higher education institutions through major strategic projects, complex governance and constitutional changes, and sensitive safeguarding and employment issues. Our close relationships with some of the world’s leading universities, research institutes and business schools, give us a privileged insight into the evolving pressures on the sector, and a deep well of knowledge on which to draw when we are seeking the right solution for you.
Our Higher Education team is consistently ranked for Education in the leading legal directories, and was awarded Legal 500’s award for Firm of the Year for Education in 2020. Our university clients choose us because they value our ability to offer advice of the highest quality across all their activities. We can field specialists in every discipline, from employment, through to charity law and governance, intellectual property, and data protection. This diverse expertise combined with an intricate knowledge of how the education sector works means we can work quickly and proactively to resolve their issues.
Contact - enquiries@farrer.co.uk
GatenbySanderson is the UK’s leadership expert spanning Education and broader public services. We work within complex markets that are subject to high degrees of governance and public scrutiny and organisations at the heart of social and policy change.
Our reach and networks extend across Higher Education as well as Central and Local Government, Health, Housing, Not for Profit and Regulation in every corner of the UK. Our professional specialism include Digital, Data and Technology, People, Corporate Services, Asset Management and Customer Experience. We build long term, intelligent relationships and provide outstanding people care to support strategic corporate and academic leadership appointments at Board and Executive Level.
Whether identifying the next Vice Chancellor, devising top team or board development programmes, creating more inclusive teams or driving through organisational change initiatives, we partner with organisations to provide future ready leadership, improve board performance and accelerate change. We provide positive challenge, creativity and a rigorous process to those organisations looking to introduce or develop new talent, while managing risk.
We deliver diversity and inclusion with one of the largest track records of senior diverse appointee - under-represented groups make more than 65% of all appointees. Our focus upon intersectionality, lived experience and social background offers a more nuanced approach to inclusive search strategies, where we adopt a creative, lateral approach to access influencers and shapers.
We achieve some of the highest levels of candidate and client care within the industry. Using the globally recognised customer service metric of Net Promoter Score (NPS), we achieve a ‘world class’ rating putting us in the top quartile of professional services industries globally.
Contact - Julia Roberts, Education Practice Lead: julia.roberts@gatenbysanderson.com
Isio's Higher Education team
Isio brings together education sector insight and fresh thinking on pensions and wider reward to help our higher education clients, and their people, make the right choices for them, without complexity.
Our dedicated Higher Education team draws on our extensive experience of the pensions and wider reward landscape across all sectors combined with a deep understanding of the issues faced in the higher education sector to help our clients offer their people what they value, whilst balancing costs for the employer.
We know that pensions and reward need to be considered from the perspectives of what it means for ‘people’ and ‘finance’, not forgetting the governance involved. There are significant restrictions on pension provision within the sector, which we help our clients work through to create an attractive offer for their people.
How can we help you?
Contact - Sophie Ash, sophie.ash@isio.com
With over 25 years of experience in recruitment advertising, jobs.ac.uk is the leading global job board for careers in research, science, academia, and professional services.
We combine our experience with the latest analytical data to create effective advertising solutions for your jobs. All adverts on our website are posted by a dedicated team member, providing a personal touch that sets us apart from our competitors.
Contact - UK and Ireland Email: enquiries@jobs.ac.uk International Email: global@jobs.ac.uk
Mercer’s Higher Education Group: Helping the university workforce thrive
University workforces are changing. From pensions to mental health to career paths, workers’ needs are evolving, and their employers need to evolve too.
There are myriad services, new approaches, investment strategies and benefits packages that universities might not have taken advantage of in the past. But what’s on offer is changing with the times as are the challenges and issues faced in the sector. We can support and help you to navigate these challenges, to look after your most important asset – your people – in a way that’s right for you and your university.
From considering pensions, financial education, engagement, wellbeing and attracting and retaining talent, our insight and experience is unrivalled:
Contact - rebecca.dodd@mercer.com
Mills & Reeve is a major UK law firm and a top tier provider of legal services to the education sector in England and Wales, advising over 130 universities, colleges, national agencies, academies, educational businesses and charities. The firm has one of the largest teams of specialist education lawyers in the country with legal expertise in all areas in which universities need support including employment, pensions and immigration. The firm provides clients with expert lawyers who know the sector back to front and give practical, context-aware advice that they know works. The strength and depth of the team allows the firm to resource work at the most cost effective level for its clients. Mills & Reeve has supported UHR for over 19 years, running workshops and providing support and legal briefings to members across a variety of specialist subject areas, and is delighted to be sponsoring this year’s conference.
Mills & Reeve is the only law firm to feature in the UK 100 Best Companies to Work for list 20 years running. It is a “One-stop shop” provider on the £30million panel for London Universities Consortium Panel (LUPC) and ranked band 1 adviser to education institutions by the legal directories, recognising its broader sector expertise across many services.
Useful links:
Sign up to our employment law blog
Sign up to our education law blog
Subscribe to our employment law update podcast series
Click here for details of and to sign up to our latest events
Click here for our recent webinar recordings
Click here for our university financial resilience information hub
Contact - nicola.brown@mills-reeve.com, nick.abbott@mills-reeve.com, alex.russell@mills-reeve.com
NTT DATA Business Solutions is a Global SAP Partner with a strategic focus in Higher Education. We help universities deliver the very best experiences for their employees and offer unrivalled knowledge of the challenges facing the higher education sector. With over 13,500 SAP experts in 30 countries, we are there where and when our customers need us. That’s why people trust us. All over the world.
The SAP SuccessFactors Human Experience Management (HXM) Suite, packaged for the Higher Education sector, enables universities to transform the way HR interacts with the wider institution. With new digital HR capabilities that introduce HR efficiencies and improve the everyday experience of your people, the university will be able to attract, develop, motivate, manage and engage talent.
Discover more about SAP SuccessFactors for Higher Education
Contact - Carl Adams, Director of Marketing, carl.adams@nttdata.com
The Oracle Cloud offers a complete suite of integrated applications for Sales, Service, Marketing, Human Resources, Finance, Supply Chain, and Manufacturing, plus Highly Automated and Secure Oracle Cloud Infrastructure featuring the Oracle Autonomous Database. For more information about Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), please visit our website.
Contact - Leatham Green, Transformation Director, leatham.green@oracle.com
People Insight help organisations listen to their staff and turn this feedback into positive change. We make it easy to understand staff experiences through our People Insight platform to deliver Employee Engagement surveys, Employee Experience, Diversity and Inclusion surveys, Wellbeing surveys, 360 programmes and HR consultancy projects. But delivering insights is just the start; our focus is on helping to generate action, building local capability, to listen and act on your employee voice insights. We use the latest technology to provide you with data-driven insights that are easy to put into practice. And our experts ensure you can act with confidence and use these insights to make lasting change that achieves your People and organisational priorities. We have extensive experience working on staff listening programmes and developing staff listening strategies for the University sector and are able to provide robust sector benchmarks.
Our friendly team would love to talk to you and demo our platform:
Contact - enquiry@peopleinsight.co.uk, 0203 142 6511
In these continuing challenging times for HR, we work with our HE clients to find solutions. Our group of specialists are always on hand to help navigate through an ever changing post-pandemic landscape. We provide practical sector-specific guidance on all matters employment related. We have expertise in the legal and cultural issues associated with Diversity & Inclusion, investigations, whistleblowing, industrial relations, pension and immigration matters. As we emerge in to a future world of work we are guiding our HE clients on remote and hybrid working, global mobility, health and safety, mental health and other related issues.
To sign up to our weekly Employment newsletter please click here
Contact - Helen.Corden@pinsentmasons.com, Rebecca.Stephen@pinsentmasons.com
Prosci is a global leader in change management and the provider of choice for 80% of Fortune 100 companies. Prosci combines scientific research with the people side of change to deliver results-focused solutions that enable clients to achieve change outcomes and grow organisational change capability.
Here, you will find a team of dedicated change management professionals that can help you achieve your change needs through training and change advisory services.
Contact - hhutchins@prosci.com
With a long-standing involvement in and commitment to the education sector, our team have extensive experience across all legal issues that affect education institutions, guiding and supporting our clients through challenges and opportunities.
We have particular expertise of advising in the HE sector on HR issues. We pride ourselves on protecting and growing organisations. Our approach goes beyond just legal solutions: clients trust us to advise on what’s possible, what’s prudent and what’s coming around the corner.
Working with higher education institutions, our full-service team can advise on any legal issue that an institution may have. This includes regulatory and policy work, employment issues, student matters, governance and constitutional questions, partnerships and collaboration, disputes, large-scale capital projects, and estates master planning.
We are fully immersed in the education law sector, with a number of specialists working exclusively with our education clients. Combining the breadth of our expertise with the breadth of our client base, our team of specialist lawyers are in a position to advise clients every step of the way.
Contact - david.browne@shma.co.uk
At SocialOptic, we empower leaders to build thriving organisations through a comprehensive software platform and expert services that capture peoples’ knowledge and opinions, enabling leaders to drive informed decision-making. We are a friendly team with diverse expertise in psychology, data engineering and research methodologies, working collaboratively as an extended part of your team to provide the strategic guidance you need. From fully managed survey research projects to user-friendly self-service surveys, the SurveyOptic platform covers the full survey lifecycle in a secure and compliant manner, delivering timely and actionable results. A closed-loop action planning system maximises the impact of the insights generated. With SurveyOptic you can understand any moment in the employee journey: onboarding, engagement, workplace dynamics, travel, culture, 360 feedback, performance management, and exit surveys all in one place.
Contact - hello@socialoptic.com, 0203 393 6591
From our offices in the United Kingdom, the United States, and New Zealand, Society's global team solves senior recruitment challenges for responsible businesses and purpose-driven organisations around the world on a retained basis.
Contact - Victoria Sanders-Clarke, victoria.sanders-clarke@society-search.com
As global experts we help HE to create sustainable coaching cultures. By developing Operational Coaching® as a management style for all academic and professional colleagues you can measurably increase engagement, retention, collaboration, inclusion and productivity. Certified STAR® programmes are academically proven (by LSE) to deliver behavioural change in 6 months and a 74X learner ROI.
Contact - mark@notionltd.com
Strengthify’s purpose is to help organisations, particularly in higher education, embrace and harness the power of individuals. Moving the focus away from ‘fixing’ people by applying evidence-based positive psychology to create better managers, teams and organisations.
We have produced a UK Higher Education Employee Engagement Insights Report which is freely available to all UK universities. Access the Report [link to report page when live]
We understand every university is different and we look to tailor our advice and services to your specific needs; please get in touch and we’ll be happy to arrange an initial conversation.
SUMS Consulting works for universities to ensure they are fit for the future.
We are a not-for-profit membership organisation, owned by universities, providing expert consultancy to the higher education sector. SUMS Consulting combines independence and impartiality with our overall mission to work in partnership with our members. We thrive on complex problem solving and deliver tangible added value. Our consulting staff understand the higher education sector, its unique business model and the challenges it faces. At the same time, we offer a depth of experience and skills gained outside the sector from a variety of commercial, professional and industrial backgrounds. This combined expertise helps us connect strategy to operations to make sure our recommendations have impact and can be implemented successfully.
Contact – Emma Ogden, e.l.ogden@reading.ac.uk
TalentEdu provides executive search and tailored recruitment services designed around the needs of the higher education sector and our university clients.
We work across three core areas of recruitment within higher education; senior leadership, academic appointments and professional services. To do this, we offer a range of services that fit with the needs of universities. Whether an institution requires a full executive search, assistance with sourcing interims or a more flexible approach to recruiting one or more posts, we are able to provide creative recruitment solutions to meet those needs.
We specialise in recruiting talented individuals for the higher education sector in a more flexible and with a more ethical approach and a real commitment to improving the representation of underrepresented groups within universities.
Contact – Mark Holleran, Managing Director, MHolleran@TalentEdu.com
Times Higher Education connects people, data and insights to help universities deliver transformational impact.
Combining data and expertise within a global platform, Times Higher Education helps universities deliver for people, places and the planet. We connect the world’s higher education community, facilitate the flow of talent, and help academics and students fulfil their potential. We are proud to support universities, and believe that together we will build a better, more sustainable future.
We believe that academic talent is the lifeblood of world-class universities. Our recruitment platform THEunijobs and our precise targeting tools ensure your positions are seen by top talent from around the world, while our bespoke branding opportunities help showcase your institution as a top employer. Or you can dive straight into our CV library, to headhunt from over 25,000 active jobseekers!
With millions of academics and higher education professionals, hailing from over 200 countries and regions using our services, we are uniquely placed to connect you with the best candidates. Our commitment to you is to help you find and attract exceptional candidates, every time.
Contact – hiring@timeshighereducation.com
TPP Recruitment are a nationwide recruitment consultancy that specialise in recruiting for higher education organisations. We recruit candidates from entry level right through to Director level to temporary, interim, contract, consultancy and permanent vacancies. We are able to provide candidates from entry level up to senior leadership team and executive appointments.
Our specialisms include:
How we work in partnership with you:
Contact – education@tpp.co.uk, 020 7198 6090
Founded by the University of Warwick HR department in 1997, Unitemps is a university-owned, campus-based recruitment service which seeks to address the key challenges in higher education, such as employability, compliance and financial limitations.
With our heritage firmly grounded in the higher education sector, Unitemps is an innovative employment solution placing candidates from the university and wider community in temporary, permanent, graduate and internship roles within the university and local businesses. Specific HR benefits include:
Unitemps has branches at 18 universities across the UK and Unitemps’ largest branch has been successfully operating from within HR at UCL since 2018.
Contact - Andy Walker, andy.walker@warwick.ac.uk, 07824540731
VWV's dedicated team of higher education lawyers provides specialist legal support to universities nationally from our offices in London, Watford, Bristol and Birmingham.
We are a leading adviser to the higher education sector and are recognised in the legal directories as being top ranked in education, with Legal 500 commenting that VWV "has an outstanding track record of excellence in the HE sector so is the "go to" firm for complex claims, particularly involving academic staff".
Our HE employment team is dedicated to providing specialised, tailored legal advice to suit the particular challenges and demands faced by higher education institutions in employment and HR related matters. We understand the environment in which HEIs operate and provide innovative, pragmatic solutions on everything from day-to-day queries to complex, sensitive, strategic issues, with a focus on helping clients understand and manage risk.
Contact - Jane Byford, Head of Higher Education, jbyford@vwv.co.uk & Bob Fahy, Partner, bfahy@vwv.co.uk
Weightmans is a top 40 UK law firm with more than 1,400 people working from our offices in Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Manchester and Newcastle. A leading national player in its client markets, Weightmans’ roots date back to the early 19th century. With 140 specialisms recognised and 432 experts listed in key legal directories, the firm offers a full spectrum of services.
What makes us different is our people. Our people are determined to achieve the best results for our clients. Our dedicated Education team brings together specialist expertise to provide a complete solution both in the UK and overseas in increasingly important markets. We always take a bespoke approach, no assumptions, no one-size-fits-all, spending time with you to understand your issues and priorities, passing on best practice and insights through regular briefings and workshops and, most of all, personal engagement. That’s why we believe we provide unrivalled support and value for money.
