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Do we know how many Black professors there are in UK higher education?

by Zarus Cenac

UK higher education is known to have too few Black professors (eg Hubbard, 2026). The presence of Black professors can be thought about by looking at 1) the number of Black professors or 2) the percentage of professors who are Black (Adisa et al, 2025; Gibney, 2024). The number/percentage has been referred to, for instance, in journal articles (Adisa et al, 2025; Arday, 2022), the media (Coughlan, 2021), and in the House of Lords (House of Lords, 2025). We can keep an eye on the number, or the percentage, to have an idea about if the situation is improving (Gibney, 2024; Nowell, 2025). So, is it not vital that we have accurate numbers and percentages? In a recent post on SRHE Blog, I considered how to statistically analyse the representation of Black professors in different ways –analyses showed that Black professors are underrepresented (Cenac, 2026a). In the present blog post, I discuss issues with the apparent number of Black professors and the apparent percentage of professors who are Black – this blog post asks if we actually know the number and the percentage (Figure 1), and this blog post considers if we really should say that Black people are underrepresented in the professoriate.

Figure 1: Factors Which May Affect Our Measurement of the Black Presence in the Professoriate

Note. Figure 1 is based on the literature/data (Dembosky et al, 2019; HESA, 2026; Gibney, 2022). See the main text for full explanations. HESA is the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA, nd-a).

The number of Black professors

When people wish to say how many Black professors there are, a source they can use is the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) (eg Essilfie-Quaye et al, 2025; Gibney, 2024) who “are the experts in UK higher education data” (HESA, nd-a, para 1). However, there are two points to consider: firstly, we should be mindful of how HESA categorises an academic as a professor (HESA, nd-b), and, secondly, ethnicity is unknown for a proportion of professors in the HESA data (HESA, 2026). Those two points are discussed next.

Professors in HESA data

In the HESA data, a professor may be classified as a professor (HESA, 2026, nd-c). Alternatively, a professor can be categorised into a different senior group for academics, for example, if the professor’s role is managerial (HESA, 2026; nd-c). So, there is a good chance that the HESA professor category shows us fewer professors than there truly are, and HESA are open about this (HESA, 2026) – see Figure 2. The different senior group is not limited to professors (HESA, 2026, nd-b); from looking through the HESA website (HESA, nd-b; 2024, 2026), HESA seem not to have data which specifies how many professors there are in the different senior group (eg overall or for Black professors).

Going by HESA data (HESA, 2024; 2026) and literature on the presence of Black professors, we can see instance after instance where the number of Black professors (eg Arday, 2022; Essilfie-Quaye et al, 2025; Gibney, 2024; Nowell, 2025) seems to have been derived from the HESA professor category, and (to my knowledge) without mentioning the issue that the HESA professor category may not include all professors because some professors are potentially being put into the different senior group. If awareness of this issue is not as good as it should be, perhaps HESA should consider if the issue could be communicated more obviously, for example, referring to it just before/after the table in HESA (2024) or HESA (2026) which breaks down the HESA professor category by ethnic group.

Figure 2: Black Female Professors

Note. Figure 2 refers to WHEN Equality (2026) and uses data from HESA (nd-d).

Unknown ethnicity

Ethnicity is not known for all academics in the HESA professor category (HESA, 2026). For example, ethnicity it is not known for 2,210 of those professors in the 2024–25 academic year (HESA, 2026). Because of this, we really should expect the number given for Black professors in the HESA professor category to be fewer than the true number of Black professors.

The percentage (proportion) of professors who are Black

If we want to see how well Black professors are represented, we can look to the percentage or proportion of people in the HESA professor category who are Black (eg Adisa et al, 2025; Cenac, 2026a; Essilfie-Quaye et al, 2025). For instance, statistical analyses (of people whose ethnicity is known) indicate that Black people are substantially less represented in the HESA professor category than they are in 1) the UK working-age population overall (Cenac, 2026a), and 2) an older section of the UK working-age population (Cenac, 2026b). Next, we will consider (in two ways) if percentages (proportions) from the HESA professor category actually are useful for looking into the representation of Black academics.

Professors in the HESA data

As covered earlier in this blog post, in the HESA data, professors can be in the professor category or the different senior group (HESA, 2026). We do not know if the percentage of professors who are Black would be different in the HESA professor category than it is for professors in the HESA different senior group. In the HESA data, professors with (at least) a certain level of seniority will not be categorised as professors, instead being put into the different senior group (HESA, 2026). Black representation is known to decrease the higher up people are in the academic hierarchy, from undergraduate student to professor (eg Gibney, 2022). So, it would not be surprising if Black representation is greater amongst the HESA professor category than amongst professors in the different senior group. Therefore, the percentage of Black people in the HESA professor category could be higher than the true percentage of professors who are Black. This means that the notable underrepresentation of Black people in the HESA professor category (Cenac, 2026a) would likely be found even if analysis included professors from the different senior group.

On the other hand, out of people whose ethnicity is known, Black people are 1.13% of the HESA professor category in 2024–25 (Cenac, 2026a), but 1.69% of the different senior group in the HESA (2026) data for 2024–25. So, it might not be the case that Black people are represented worse in the HESA professor category than they are amongst professors in the different senior group.

In the HESA (2026) data for 2024–25, there are nearly four times as many people in the professor category than in the different senior group. Therefore, findings with the HESA professor category are likely to be representative of what is happening with professors in general. So, it does seem useful to use percentages from the HESA professor category if we wish to know about the representation of Black professors.

Unknown ethnicity

Ethnicity is not known for some academics in the HESA data (HESA, 2026). When it comes to people giving their racial or ethnic background in a survey, some people refrain from giving their background (Dembosky et al, 2019). This refraining is suggested to not be the same across different backgrounds, with results indicating that Black people refrain the most whilst the group who refrain the least are White people who are other than Hispanic (Dembosky et al, 2019). If Black professors hold back on declaring their background more than other groups of professors, that could make it seem like the percentage of professors who are Black is lower than it truly is. However, the difference in the rate at which Black people and non-Hispanic White people refrain from giving their background (in a survey) is suggested to not even be 4% (Dembosky et al, 2019) – a difference in rates would probably not be an issue when it comes to using the HESA professor category for looking into the representation of Black professors.

Conclusion

The HESA professor category probably does not show us how many Black professors there really are, giving us a number which is lower than the true number of Black professors (eg Figure 2). Although HESA are forthcoming about how professors can be partitioned between the HESA professor category and the different senior group (eg HESA, 2026), HESA should consider if they can convey this better. Even if there truly are more Black professors than the HESA professor category suggests, this blog post is not implying that Black academics are well represented in the professoriate. Overall, the percentage (proportion) of Black professors in the HESA professor category shows a marked underrepresentation (Cenac, 2026a), and, as discussed above, that percentage should give us a good indication of the true representation (the underrepresentation) of Black professors despite factors which may somewhat affect how good the percentage is at indicating how the situation really is (Figure 1). So, when the HESA professor category is used to explore the presence of Black professors, far more emphasis should be put on the percentage or proportion of professors who are Black rather than the number of Black professors.

Zarus Cenac has worked at UK universities, for example, he was a visiting lecturer at City, University of London. He is currently an administrator at UCL. His interests include race and ethnicity from an interdisciplinary perspective.


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Do we really empower sabbatical officers to be the voice of students?

by Rebecca Turner, Jennie Winter & Nadine Schaefer

Student voice is firmly embedded within the architecture of universities, with multiple mechanisms existing through which we (as educators) can ‘hear’, and students can ‘leverage’ their voice.  The notion of student voice is widely debated (and critiqued – see Mendes & Hammett, 2023), and whilst relevant to this blog post, it is not what we seek to focus on here. Rather we focus on one of the primary figureheads of student voice within universities – the sabbatical officer – and consider how they are empowered to represent the ‘voice’ of their peers to their university.

Sabbatical officers are elected by the student body to represent their interests to the wider university community. They are leaders and trustees of their student union – semi autonomous organisations that operate alongside universities to advocate for the student body (Brooks, Byford & Sela 2016).  As elected student representatives, sabbatical officers sit on high-level university committees where student voice is ‘required,’ making the rapid transition from a student in a lecture hall, to a voice for all. Though this is an anticipated move, it is potentially challenging. Becoming a sabbatical officer is the accumulation of a hard-fought election campaign, which commonly builds on several years of working with their students’ union alongside their undergraduate studies (Turner & Winter, 2023).

In collaboration with the NUS, and with the support of a small grant from the Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA), we undertook a national survey to develop contemporary insights into the work of elected sabbatical officers. Sabbatical officers were clearly keen to share their experiences as we achieved responses from 59% of student unions affiliated to the NUS. We also undertook interviews with a sample of sabbatical officers (n=4) and permanent student union staff (n=6) who supported them during their time in office. Here we reflect on headlines emerging from this study, to place a brief spotlight on the work of sabbatical officers. 

What a busy year (or two!)

Sabbatical officers were often negotiating multiple, potentially competing, demands – as this survey respondent reflected when invited to comment on the main challenges they faced:

‘Getting up to speed with the fast-moving world of [being] a sabbatical officer and the many roles I had (sabb, trustee, leader, admin and campaigner)’.

Sabbatical officers had a long list of responsibilities, including jobs inherited from their predecessor, union and university commitments, as well as the commitments they made through their own manifestos.  Attending university committees to give the student voice took considerable time, with many questioning the value of the time spent in meetings:

‘It’s very much the case that you are in a room for two hours where you will be speaking for, I don’t know, two minutes. So sometimes it seems very boring to get involved with those random conversations which have very little to do directly with student experience.’ SO1

It was a common theme that sabbatical officers were silent during these meetings, waiting for the brief interlude when they were invited to speak. Leading us to question both where their agency as student representatives lay in these committees, and how they could effect change in this space, when their engagement was limited. A concern shared across survey respondents, for example:

‘I’m in a huge number of meetings which significantly reduces the amount of time I have to work on manifesto objectives.’

With a jobs list (and a diary) that echoed that of many Vice Chancellors (though with considerably less experience in HE), sabbatical officers reported engaging in trade-offs for who they worked with, whose voice was heard and opinions sought, to balance the demands of their role.  As this sabbatical officer reflected, this could leave the wider student body questioning their actions:

‘[Students] want to see the battle happening.  What they don’t want to see, is me sit for three hours and hash out the middle ground with some members of staff who probably aren’t going to change their mind.’ SO2

Finding their voice

Though given a seat at high level tables, respondents did not always feel at ease speaking up, the sentiments of this respondent were repeated many times in our data:

‘I think the hardest part is, we are sitting on committees with individuals who have worked here for years.  We’re never going to have that same knowledge, so that makes it quite a challenge um to be able to understand the ins and outs of the university and the institution, and the politics.’ SO3

We did question whether the expectation to engage in these spaces may further reinforce the inequalities in student leadership highlighted by Brooks et al (2015).  However, sabbatical officers were not working alone. Permanent officers played an important role, helping them, for example, to decode paperwork and plan their contributions. Leadership allies, who may, for example, provide early access to meeting paperwork to aide preparation, or coach sabbatical officers in advance of meetings, assisted sabbatical officers to find their voice:

‘I think the university has been really accommodating giving me the heads up on things that I could then have a bit more time to read up on things and to improve my knowledge.’ SO4

Developing effective support networks was essential; through these networks they gained the knowledge needed to contribute confidently in ‘university’ spaces. However, this took considerable time and resulted in many reprioritising their work. They focused on activities deemed essential (which were many!) with other areas of the work being streamlined to ensure promised commitments could be fulfilled (Turner & Winter, 2023). 

The time taken for sabbatical officers to get up to speed was discussed at length by those serving a second term, which as this respondent noted, was ‘when the real work got done.’   They had learnt the ropes, and as another Sabbatical Officer (SO) reflected:

‘There’s a lot of stuff [to learn] when you come into this role.  I think sabbatical officers do well if they are re-elected because they’ve had to learn a lot.’ SO2

‘Knowing the route to achieve my goals’

Our data captured the committed and driven nature of this (overlooked and overworked) constituent of the HE community. Though working in challenging circumstances, they embraced opportunities to influence policy and practice. Successes were based on the support they received and the strategies they developed to undertake their work. The value of an effective handover from their predecessor cannot be overlooked and permanent student union staff provided much needed continuity and support. Sabbatical officers drew on their student representatives to provide the eyes on the ground and engaged with senior leaders to develop their understanding of how universities work and through these individuals they grew in confidence to speak in front of diverse audiences.  As individuals, many respondents performed their roles with tenacity, approaching their work both pragmatically and innovatively. Yet the time limited nature of this role added pressure and delineated what could be achieved:

‘Knowing the route to achieve my goals was difficult because it requires knowing what exactly you want before you’ve even started the job [so that you can] achieve what you want in year.’

This prompted us to question the sustainability of the sabbatical officer role; realistically who can manage, at this early stage in their career, the breadth of demands placed on them for more than a short period of time?

Promoting the voice of sabbatical officers?

As pedagogic researchers, we have a final, curious observation to make regarding the dearth of systematic research into this field of HE. Student unions have a long history; reference is still made to the activism and uprise of the 1960s (Klemenčič 2014). As a community we lament how student voice activities have become the realm of quality assurance, and question whether students have become politically apathetic (Raaper, 2020). The re-positioning of student unions has increased accountability and encouraged partnership working with their affiliated university (Brooks et al, 2016; Squire 2020). This leads us to question how relevant it is to continue to look backwards and talk of how students’ unions used to operate in the past. As the sector becomes increasingly diverse and how students engage with HE becomes more fragmented, we need to play closer attention to students’ unions to ensure they are supported to function effectively and represent the interest of students. 

Dr Rebecca Turner is an Associate Professor in Educational Development at the University of Plymouth, UK.  Alongside her interest in student voice and representation, Rebecca’s research addresses themes relating to inclusivity, student success and widening participation. 

Professor Jennie Winter is Dean of Teaching and Learning and Professor of Academic Development at Plymouth Marjon University, a National Teaching Fellow, and a Principal Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. She holds numerous external roles, contributes to international pedagogic research, and her work has been utilised by the European Commission and presented globally.

Dr Nadine Schaefer is an Educational Developer at the University of Plymouth. Her research interests include student voice, student engagement and wider quality assurance issues in HE. Nadine is a Senior Advance HE Fellow (SFHEA).